Storage Harddisks

[Lit3s]

I go for 5yr warranty HDDs. 100% no Seagates. That usually means WD Black (up to 6TB). Greens are out. Reds, again will usually consider ones with 5yr warranty. >6TB looking at Gold but harder to get.

precisely not much choices for more than 6TB. In comparision, i'm looking the SG Ironwolf, seems more value for money

 

[Rocket3]

depends who do you buy from, some sellers might not be technically inclined to differentiate SMR drives, its best to google which model/drives are prone to be SMR drives.

I agree. Do research on the Internet on the hard disk you are thinking of buying.

Pay attention to the hard disk model numbers. Using product brief for Western Digital Blue (https://documents.westerndigital.co...duct-brief-western-digital-wd-blue-pc-hdd.pdf) as an example, model number can be used to differentiate between SMR and CMR drive.

If you are buying from SLS, look at and check the model number carefully!

Very recently, hard disk companies silently introduce SMR into their products. The performance degradation can be significant (depending on how the hard disks are used) and they even got sued.

 

[CI]

For SMR vs non-SMR drives, WD has addressed it here:

https://arstechnica.com/gadgets/202...ds-red-plus-branding-for-non-smr-hard-drives/

If really worry, just get Red+ instead of Red. Might costs more tho.

 

[CI]

precisely not much choices for more than 6TB. In comparision, i'm looking the SG Ironwolf, seems more value for money

bobian, money is secondary here. It's painful to pay the premium for large drives but even more painful to worry day and night when your 10TB just conks out and lost everything inside.

 

[Hafi]

bobian, money is secondary here. It's painful to pay the premium for large drives but even more painful to worry day and night when your 10TB just conks out and lost everything inside.

thats why always keeping a backup on cloud like Backblaze (not the B2 cloud) is a must.

at one fixed fee, I already storing 10TB of data without much issue and the data keeps growing.

 

[Hafi]

Actually if u rip your Blu-ray n storing them in hdd, it’s ok to use in SMR drives since not going to keep overwrite.

its fine to use SMR drives to store archivals (data you dun need to access often), people have been buying cheaper WD Livebook ext drives and shucking out the int drive inside and use them for archiving data.

 

[laclah]

My pc is booted with a nvme m2 ssd drive, i want to add another storage space to install games on it, was thinking a 2tb or 4tb wd black. Want to know if loading times and performance will be affected significantly on a hdd? or do I choose a 2.5" ssd instead?

 

[hellspawn_one]

My pc is booted with a nvme m2 ssd drive, i want to add another storage space to install games on it, was thinking a 2tb or 4tb wd black. Want to know if loading times and performance will be affected significantly on a hdd? or do I choose a 2.5" ssd instead?

yes, but not significant.

 

[jtjt00]

My pc is booted with a nvme m2 ssd drive, i want to add another storage space to install games on it, was thinking a 2tb or 4tb wd black. Want to know if loading times and performance will be affected significantly on a hdd? or do I choose a 2.5" ssd instead?

.
Any drive connected as secondary storage will be accessed during boot process. As such, a slow mechanical HDD will slow down to boot process.

 

[laclah]

Is installing a wd black over a 2.5" ssd worth the money saved?

 

[hafiz116]

My pc is booted with a nvme m2 ssd drive, i want to add another storage space to install games on it, was thinking a 2tb or 4tb wd black. Want to know if loading times and performance will be affected significantly on a hdd? or do I choose a 2.5" ssd instead?

As long as your OS and all supporting software are installed on the NVMe you will not notice any slowdown in the boot up process. Only when you launch the applications/games stored on the mechanical hard drive will the slow loading times be noticeable. I have noticed that a lot of people only install the OS on the NVMe and all apps are on a mechanical drive. IF any of those apps are call upon at boot-up then that affects the performance!

What I usually plan for is a big enough NVMe to install the run the most played games onto it. The games that you do not play so often can be installed on the mechanical HDD.

This does mean if your mood changes and you want to play one of the games on the HDD more you may want to consider uninstalling it from the HDD and re-installing it to the NVMe. Try with a single game and see if the speed of loading actually makes a difference to you. In a lot of cases the difference is not big enough to worry about.

NVMe's are reasonably priced these days with Amazon usually selling the WD Black SN750 500Gb just under $100 and the 1TB for less than $200 - have to monitor and grab once the prices dip tho so it does feel like the stock market when purchasing on Amazon!

Hope this helps you decide on how to configure your PC for the best possible storage option to suite your needs

 

[hafiz116]

Is installing a wd black over a 2.5" ssd worth the money saved?

How much are we talking about saving here? The difference in speed is actually big so if you do not have what you need today AND do have an empty M.2 slot I would always go the NVMe route.

Below are some benchmarks to further illustrate: -

 

[Mythmaker]

My pc is booted with a nvme m2 ssd drive, i want to add another storage space to install games on it, was thinking a 2tb or 4tb wd black. Want to know if loading times and performance will be affected significantly on a hdd? or do I choose a 2.5" ssd instead?

Yes the loading times will be affected but not the performance.

What happens is that the most of the important parts of the game will be copied to the RAM, and the CPU will then load whatever it needs on demand from the RAM. Usually big stuff like maps and etc are not copied to the RAM at the initial game start up; only the important and common stuff are.

Hence these big stuff will only be loaded progressively as you move on in the game. But once you are in the stage/level, it should be smooth because it will purely be CPU <> RAM unless you have an abysmal amount of RAM where it is not even enough for the initial copying.

You can imagine the process of the HDD copying to the RAM will be inherently slow; because the HDD is slow.

 

[laclah]

As long as your OS and all supporting software are installed on the NVMe you will not notice any slowdown in the boot up process. Only when you launch the applications/games stored on the mechanical hard drive will the slow loading times be noticeable.

What I usually plan for is a big enough NVMe to install the run the most played games onto it. The games that you do not play so often can be installed on the mechanical HDD.

This does mean if your mood changes and you want to play one of the games on the HDD more you may want to consider uninstalling it from the HDD and re-installing it to the NVMe. Try with a single game and see if the speed of loading actually makes a difference to you. In a lot of cases the difference is not big enough to worry about.

NVMe's are reasonably priced these days with Amazon usually selling the WD Black SN750 500Gb just under $100 and the 1TB for less than $200 - have to monitor and grab once the prices dip tho so it does feel like the stock market when purchasing on Amazon!

Hope this helps you decide on how to configure your PC for the best possible storage option to suite your needs

I read that installing 2 nvme m2 drives will disable my sata ports right? I have a few hdd connected via sata for other storage which I don't want them to be disabled.

 

[hafiz116]

I read that installing 2 nvme m2 drives will disable my sata ports right? I have a few hdd connected via sata for other storage which I don't want them to be disabled.

This is motherboard/chipset specific and it does not disable all SATA ports - I believe its the last 2. Best is to look up your motherboard and read up on its capabilities. If I'm not wrong the X570 motherboards do not disable SATA ports.

 

[Pocoyoz]

https://www.seagate.com/sg/en/internal-hard-drives/cmr-smr-list/

westerndigital internal HDDs using SMR technology

 

[luei74]

I read that installing 2 nvme m2 drives will disable my sata ports right? I have a few hdd connected via sata for other storage which I don't want them to be disabled.

Yes got to refer to the Mobo manual, my Aorus 450H M2 and NMVE disable two different SATA ports

Sent from Xiaomi MI MAX 3 using GAGT

 

[Audiology93]

Sent from Samsung SM-N950F using GAGT

 

[napoleon bohlumpar]

yes...............storage is so important..............


nothing can be more gut-wrenching than to lose your precious collection of porn..............painstakingly collected over years...........

 

[Lit3s]

thats why always keeping a backup on cloud like Backblaze (not the B2 cloud) is a must.

at one fixed fee, I already storing 10TB of data without much issue and the data keeps growing.

wow how long you take to do that upload? Can't imagine the downloading again