Fast Mechanical Drives

[chaikovski2002]

Im going to be doing a computer build soon, and I was wondering if any of the drives here in my current system are worth reusing into my new computer for gaming:

Western Digital Caviar Blue WD6400AAKS 640GB 7200 RPM 16MB Cache SATA 3.0Gb/s
Western Digital Caviar Black WD6401AALS 640GB 7200 RPM 32MB Cache SATA 3.0Gb/s
Seagate Barracuda 7200.12 ST31000528AS 1TB 7200 RPM 32MB Cache SATA 3.0Gb/s
Western Digital Caviar Black WD1001FALS 1TB 7200 RPM 32MB Cache SATA 3.0Gb/s
Samsung Spinpoint F1 HD753LJ 750GB 7200 RPM 32MB Cache SATA 3.0Gb/s

Ill be getting an SSD for a OS\boot drive but I also want to have 2-3 fast mechanical drives for apps, retail games, and steam. Are there faster 7200 rpm drives on the market? Should I just move all those drives into my livingroom htpc and buy newer drives?

 

[ISimplyFallenI]

I personally have 3 Seagate Barracudas in my gaming rig and they work completely fine my friends have western Digital Black Caviar and I don't see a difference between the two loading times are the exact same sometime I'm faster sometimes they are it really all depends in your choice I suggest Seagate more than Western Digital only because I have more knowledge of it than I do with Western Digital also I have no experience with Samsung so I can't say anything about it but hope this helps.

 

[Ali Man]

Seagate is as fast as you'll get right now in todays market. Any faster mechanical HDD's would then be Velociraptors. WD's Caviar black is overrated in terms of performance. Seagate's 7200 still perform a bit better.

 

[drescherjm]

WD's Caviar black is overrated in terms of performance.

Especially the ones using 500 GB platters while hitachi and Seagate were using 1TB platters..

And then I really hope the 640GB models above are not still using 320 GB platters from 2009.

 

[drescherjm]

Im going to be doing a computer build soon, and I was wondering if any of the drives here in my current system are worth reusing into my new computer for gaming:

Western Digital Caviar Blue WD6400AAKS 640GB 7200 RPM 16MB Cache SATA 3.0Gb/s
Western Digital Caviar Black WD6401AALS 640GB 7200 RPM 32MB Cache SATA 3.0Gb/s
Seagate Barracuda 7200.12 ST31000528AS 1TB 7200 RPM 32MB Cache SATA 3.0Gb/s
Western Digital Caviar Black WD1001FALS 1TB 7200 RPM 32MB Cache SATA 3.0Gb/s
Samsung Spinpoint F1 HD753LJ 750GB 7200 RPM 32MB Cache SATA 3.0Gb/s

Ill be getting an SSD for a OS\boot drive but I also want to have 2-3 fast mechanical drives for apps, retail games, and steam. Are there faster 7200 rpm drives on the market? Should I just move all those drives into my livingroom htpc and buy newer drives?

It looks like a lot of drives from 2009 or 2010. Get a drive from 2012 that contains 1TB platters if you want better performance.

 

[Skripka]

It looks like a lot of drives from 2009 or 2010. Get a drive from 2012 if you want better performance.

Meh, for a spinner the prices for identically sized drives in the same tier are 3x what he paid for the drives he has. I'd do as the OP is doing and reuse drives, especially since he's using SSD for OS.

 

[drescherjm]

I missed the SSD part..

Ill be getting an SSD for a OS\boot drive but I also want to have 2-3 fast mechanical drives for apps, retail games, and steam.

Purchase a 256 GB SSD and move most of this onto the SSD.

 

[baldrik]

He's still going to want a spinner for Steam. Installing Steam on your HDD and then using SteamMover to put individual Steam games on the SSD is the way to go.

 

[MrDudeMan]

Why do you want a spinning disk at all?

 

[baldrik]

Why do you want a spinning disk at all?

Why do mice fly? Why do sharks have laser beam eyes? What is maths? These are all questions we will never know te answers to.