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Best HDD for gaming?

D

dioxholster

Gawd
Joined
Aug 11, 2010
Messages
801
currently, HD is last thing I think about for gaming, I just use a normal "green" WD 1TB. I know gamers use the rapter kind but Im very hesitant to use something that isnt so reliable. What do people use now though? SSD? or just what I do?
 
I'd recommend an SSD, if you could afford one, but an SSD only shortens load times. It doesn't improve frame rates.

How did you come to the conclusion that a (Veloci-)Raptor HDD isn't reliable? The Raptor has been in production for years; it's no more or less reliable than any other mechanical HDD.
 
This is what I did and have been very happy,

Bought an Intel 80 gig SSD for my main OS drive. I keep WoW in that drive also.

I bought 2 Samsung F3's 1TB and put them in raid-0. Thats where I keep all of my games and steam installed. Been very happy with this setup so far.
 
SSD for main shit & a Samsung mechanical for everything else..
 
raptors unreliable? huh?

They have a five year warranty for a reason - and very few people ever need call on the warranty. I've owned the 36gb, 74gb, and now the 300gb. All still work perfectly. That 36GB I bought new in like 2002. I'd say their reliability is much better than normal drives...

A 300GB raptor for $100 at newegg is my advice. I use a 60GB SSD for my OS and 300GB raptor for my games. Works great!
 
Archaea said:
raptors unreliable? huh?

They have a five year warranty for a reason - and very few people ever need call on the warranty. I've owned the 36gb, 74gb, and now the 300gb. All still work perfectly. That 36GB I bought new in like 2002. I'd say their reliability is much better than normal drives...

A 300GB raptor for $100 at newegg is my advice. I use a 60GB SSD for my OS and 300GB raptor for my games. Works great!
Click to expand...

I Call BS.. They spin faster therefore put themselves through more natural wear & tear.. They have 5 year warranty's because there expensive & most people dont keep using them that long so WD can afford it.. & as for 2002, meh thats not great. I have a 30gb IBM 75gxp Deskstar (or Deathstar as there so called now) that I bought when they were first released back in the late 90's..

Now am I saying that the VR's are bad drives, No not at all, I had a 36gb one that I bought 1st gen when they came out & it was a fairly reliable drive for about 6 years before it tanked, But I dont believe that they are as reliable as most of the modern 7200 RPM drives (excluding seagate because everything is more reliable then them).
 
bastage said:
I Call BS.. They spin faster therefore put themselves through more natural wear & tear.. They have 5 year warranty's because there expensive & most people dont keep using them that long so WD can afford it..
Click to expand...

your personal beliefs do not match real world quantitative data - nor WD's design specifications - "The enterprise-class mechanical and electronics platform of WD Raptor is designed to meet the 24x7 demands of the enterprise environment. Continuing to be the world's most reliable SATA hard drive, WD Raptor is reliability-rated at 1.2 million hours MTBF (mean time between failure) in high duty cycle environments and is backed by a five-year warranty. "http://www.wdc.com/en/company/pressroom/releases.aspx?release=5e48ef66-41a8-42f8-916b-ce7fcaafd1b3

By the way - 1 million hours MTBF is/was the industry standard for enterprise level SCSI drives used in most every data center across the US. Wikipedia states - "The mean time between failures (MTBF) of SATA drives is usually about 600,000 hours (some drives such as Western Digital Raptor have rated 1.4 million hours MTBF),


here's another independant source

http://www.storagereview.com/WD1500ADFD.sr

Reliability
The StorageReview.com Reliability Survey aims to amalgamate individual reader experiences with various hard disks into a comprehensive warehouse of information from which meaningful results may be extracted. A multiple-layer filter sifts through collected data, silently omitting questionable results or results from questionable participants. A proprietary analysis engine then processes the qualified dataset. SR presents results to readers through a percentile ranking system.

According to filtered and analyzed data collected from participating StorageReview.com readers, the Western Digital Raptor WD1500 is more reliable than of the other drives in the survey that meet a certain minimum floor of participation.


According to filtered and analyzed data collected from participating StorageReview.com readers, a predecessor of the Western Digital Raptor WD1500, the Western Digital Raptor WD740GD , is more reliable than of the other drives in the survey that meet a certain minimum floor of participation.

Note that the percentages in bold above may change as more information continues to be collected and analyzed. For more information, to input your experience with these and/or other drives, and to view comprehensive results, please visit the SR Drive Reliability Survey.

here's info on the 300GB model
http://www.techarp.com/showarticle.aspx?artno=590&pgno=1

Rock-solid reliability - Designed and manufactured to mission-critical enterprise-class standards to provide enterprise reliability in high duty cycle environments. With 1.4 million hours MTBF, these drives have the highest available reliability rating on a high capacity SATA drive.

These are all first page google links --- I just picked a couple...read up on your own if you don't agree. Your opinion and faulty logic do not a true statement make. Let's apply your logic elsewhere - a Honda S2000 four cylinder has a 8000 RPM redline and much higher performance than most four cylinder engines --- therefore it must be less reliable than a dodge/chevy/ford four cylinder engine which has a 6,000RPM redline.

Again - if you don't like my articles on reliability - go find your own. There's plenty of documentation -- nearly all stating that the WD 10,000 RPM raptor and velociraptors are among the most reliable drives there are. Any kind of drive can exp. a failure - but don't let your personal exp. cloud the issue.
 
Last edited:
Archaea said:
your personal beliefs do not match real world quantitative data - nor WD's design specifications - "The enterprise-class mechanical and electronics platform of WD Raptor is designed to meet the 24x7 demands of the enterprise environment. Continuing to be the world's most reliable SATA hard drive, WD Raptor is reliability-rated at 1.2 million hours MTBF (mean time between failure) in high duty cycle environments and is backed by a five-year warranty. "http://www.wdc.com/en/company/pressroom/releases.aspx?release=5e48ef66-41a8-42f8-916b-ce7fcaafd1b3

By the way - 1 million hours MTBF is/was the industry standard for enterprise level SCSI drives used in most every data center across the US. Wikipedia states - "The mean time between failures (MTBF) of SATA drives is usually about 600,000 hours (some drives such as Western Digital Raptor have rated 1.4 million hours MTBF),


here's another independant source

http://www.storagereview.com/WD1500ADFD.sr

Reliability
The StorageReview.com Reliability Survey aims to amalgamate individual reader experiences with various hard disks into a comprehensive warehouse of information from which meaningful results may be extracted. A multiple-layer filter sifts through collected data, silently omitting questionable results or results from questionable participants. A proprietary analysis engine then processes the qualified dataset. SR presents results to readers through a percentile ranking system.

According to filtered and analyzed data collected from participating StorageReview.com readers, the Western Digital Raptor WD1500 is more reliable than of the other drives in the survey that meet a certain minimum floor of participation.


According to filtered and analyzed data collected from participating StorageReview.com readers, a predecessor of the Western Digital Raptor WD1500, the Western Digital Raptor WD740GD , is more reliable than of the other drives in the survey that meet a certain minimum floor of participation.

Note that the percentages in bold above may change as more information continues to be collected and analyzed. For more information, to input your experience with these and/or other drives, and to view comprehensive results, please visit the SR Drive Reliability Survey.

here's info on the 300GB model
http://www.techarp.com/showarticle.aspx?artno=590&pgno=1

Rock-solid reliability - Designed and manufactured to mission-critical enterprise-class standards to provide enterprise reliability in high duty cycle environments. With 1.4 million hours MTBF, these drives have the highest available reliability rating on a high capacity SATA drive.

These are all first page google links --- I just picked a couple...read up on your own if you don't agree. Your opinion and faulty logic do not a true statement make. Let's apply your logic elsewhere - a Honda S2000 four cylinder has a 8000 RPM redline and much higher performance than most four cylinder engines --- therefore it must be less reliable than a dodge/chevy/ford four cylinder engine which has a 6,000RPM redline.

Again - if you don't like my articles on reliability - go find your own. There's plenty of documentation -- nearly all stating that the WD 10,000 RPM raptor and velociraptors are among the most reliable drives there are. Any kind of drive can exp. a failure - but don't let your personal exp. cloud the issue.
Click to expand...

Actually, MTBF is merely a relative measure. The rated service life of even an enterprise-class mechanical hard drive is only about five or six years. The "1 million hour" MTBF assumes that you replace the hard drive with an unused identical one every five years or so. MTBF and maximum rated service life are two completely different things.
 
E4g1e said:
Actually, MTBF is merely a relative measure. The rated service life of even an enterprise-class mechanical hard drive is only about five or six years. The "1 million hour" MTBF assumes that you replace the hard drive with an unused identical one every five years or so. MTBF and maximum rated service life are two completely different things.
Click to expand...

Still a valid metric.
 
LMAO... get a little but hurt.. You Posted nothing of use. of course WD thinks there mechanical drives rock. The results from http://www.storagereview.com conveniently forget to mention what other drives are in there survey & without registering you cant see it..

You also act like I just thrashed them in my post when that certainly was not the case. I Was jsut simply stating that & I quote "But I dont believe that they are as reliable as most of the modern 7200 RPM drives (excluding seagate because everything is more reliable then them)."
 
Your statement is wrong. Why do you continue to hold onto that position when evidence supporting your claim is lacking, but evidence supporting their significantly above average reliability is found in surplus.
Posted via [H] Mobile Device
 
bastage said:
LMAO... get a little but hurt.. You Posted nothing of use. of course WD thinks there mechanical drives rock. The results from http://www.storagereview.com conveniently forget to mention what other drives are in there survey & without registering you cant see it..

You also act like I just thrashed them in my post when that certainly was not the case. I Was jsut simply stating that & I quote "But I dont believe that they are as reliable as most of the modern 7200 RPM drives (excluding seagate because everything is more reliable then them)."
Click to expand...

It seems you're the one that is a little hurt. At least he provided relevant facts to back up his claims. Your claim that an average 7200 rpm drive is more reliable than a Raptor is unfounded. Not saying you can't be right, but you don't have any material to back up your claims.
 
E4g1e said:
Actually, MTBF is merely a relative measure. The rated service life of even an enterprise-class mechanical hard drive is only about five or six years. The "1 million hour" MTBF assumes that you replace the hard drive with an unused identical one every five years or so. MTBF and maximum rated service life are two completely different things.
Click to expand...

I quote this to show you that MTBF ratings can only be compared to other mechanically-spinning hard drives, not to SSDs or any other non-mechanical mass storage medium.
 
bastage said:
LMAO... get a little but hurt.. You Posted nothing of use. of course WD thinks there mechanical drives rock. The results from http://www.storagereview.com conveniently forget to mention what other drives are in there survey & without registering you cant see it..

You also act like I just thrashed them in my post when that certainly was not the case. I Was jsut simply stating that & I quote "But I dont believe that they are as reliable as most of the modern 7200 RPM drives (excluding seagate because everything is more reliable then them)."
Click to expand...

and your statement is wrong, which he proved.

have a nice day.
 
I've had one of my three Velociraptors fail. First HDD fail I've had since the infamous IBM deathstar (which I bought specifically for the reliable IBM name, sigh).

That being said, WD sent me a replacement in a return-labelled box for my drive. Great service, nice web tool to request it (based on S/N), A+++, would buy again.
 
Guys, we're about to go off the rails here. Let's answer the OP's question once and for all....

dioxholster said:
currently, HD is last thing I think about for gaming, I just use a normal "green" WD 1TB. I know gamers use the rapter kind but Im very hesitant to use something that isnt so reliable. What do people use now though? SSD? or just what I do?
Click to expand...

To sum up everyone's collective thoughts, get an SSD if you can afford one. You can fit a Windows installation and a game or two onto a 40GB SSD like the Intel X25-V, though many of us here would recommend that you buy an SSD with at least 60GB of space.

Put your Windows OS and a few of your key programs onto the SSD, and use your green HDD to store everything else. When installing Windows onto the SSD for the first time, make sure that only the SSD (not the green HDD) is connected to the computer.
 
If you don't go SSD or raptor don't go to the opposite end and buy a slow drive like the WD 1TB green. It benchmarks below the pack of comparable drives to save a bit of power. IMO your games drive should be a fast drive. Storage drives for movies and MP3s and documents can be slow "green" type drives.
 
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