Hard disk choice for kids

[setscrew]

I am finishing up a two identical builds for brothers that game (a lot). They have forty plus games in their Steam library and more will open up once they obtain the i5 processors (running Core2Duo now).

As they play so many games in a week, a 1TB SSD would be required to hold current and future games. Due to the SSD price (~ $400), I told their mother a 2 to 4 TB hard disk would be more cost effective.

Here are a couple I am considering. I would appreciate your opinions and options.

HGST Deskstar NAS 3.5-Inch 3TB 7200RPM SATA III 64MB

Western Digital 3 TB SATA III 7200 RPM 64 MB Cache Bulk/

 

[drescherjm]

I would get the HGST drive over the WDC drive for its better reliability in the only scientific study I know about. I am talking about the blackbalze study.

 

[setscrew]

I am leaning toward the Hitachi but included the WD black as that was my defacto drive for previous two builds prior to SSD adoption.

 

[Track Drew]

Is having all their games installed all the time a requirement? Assuming you don't have some download cap on your Internet service and it's not extremely slow, I would make them only have installed what they're currently playing.

Something like this would be a third the price:
$49.99 w/ promo - Seagate Barracuda ST1000DM003 1TB 7200 RPM 64MB Cache SATA 6.0Gb/s 3.5"

Just my 2c, but I just can't justify any requirement to have all my Steam games installed at once on my own system, and I'm an adult...

 

[setscrew]

I have already broached this with their parents. The entire family games together routinely. The two kids and father typically play four to five different games a week. In a month they would use maybe ten to twelve discrete game programs. As they all game, re-downloading a game would impinge on the bandwidth so three other people would be effected.

I discussed the shuttle option (moving unused games to HD and desired games to SSD), but the parents were not warm to this option.

 

[Runt.]

I have already broached this with their parents. The entire family games together routinely. The two kids and father typically play four to five different games a week. In a month they would use maybe ten to twelve discrete game programs. As they all game, re-downloading a game would impinge on the bandwidth so three other people would be effected.

I discussed the shuttle option (moving unused games to HD and desired games to SSD), but the parents were not warm to this option.

I like your shuttle option but when I was young playing my Nintendo games, I remember switching games constantly, so the idea of re-downloading a game and waiting for it to install is way too long. Get the 3TB and call it a day. Its cheap enough. No point in getting a 1TB non-SSD but it cost is a factor, get a 2TB at the very least.

 

[RazorWind]

I have already broached this with their parents. The entire family games together routinely. The two kids and father typically play four to five different games a week. In a month they would use maybe ten to twelve discrete game programs. As they all game, re-downloading a game would impinge on the bandwidth so three other people would be effected.

I discussed the shuttle option (moving unused games to HD and desired games to SSD), but the parents were not warm to this option.

Depending on how old the kids are, I could see shuffling 10+GB of game files around to three or four machines being "just too much bullshit" if you've got little kids complaining at you that it's taking to long. Easier to just pay for big hard drives and not worry about it.

I'd just go with whatever drive was the cheapest, TBH. My experience has been that the actual chance of a drive failure in practice is pretty small, and if all they're storing on there is games, it's not like they're going to lose anything super critical or irreplaceable. Worst case scenario is that they just have to download a few games again.

Unless they're just made of money, I wouldn't think terabyte size SSDs would be worth the cost just for playing games.