Internal Hard Drive for PC to Store Game Library

AdamFury on 08/12/2018 - 01:06

Hi OzBargainers,

Looking for some knowledge around the area of an internal hard drive for my PC.

With a few deals coming by for good prices on game titles I am having a hard time having them all installed.

I'd like to pick up a hard drive I could dedicate to my game library for steam / blizzard / origin etc etc.

I use a 500GB SSD for my machine and am debating if it's worth buying a bigger SSD (since there seems to be regular deals) or buying something like a 4TB Western Digital Blue Drive.

Although I am wondering with something like this being a 5400RPM drive will it impact game performance other than the obvious longer loading times to begin with?

The Seagate Barracuda 4TB is also an option but I'm less inclined due to previous experiences with Seagate and so far positive ones with WD.

It seems that for a 1TB SSD I'd be looking around the $200 mark.

So the main question if I go with the Western Digital Blue drive will my gaming take a hit? Am I best just purchasing a larger SSD?

Thanks in advance for any help or advice you are able to give.

Computing Computer Component Hard Drive SSD

Comments

  • garetz on 08/12/2018 - 05:07
    +1

    I got a 8tb xbox external, and shucked it. had a ST8000DM004 seagate barracuda compute

    • Yummy on 08/12/2018 - 06:44

      … and then?

      • Nugs on 08/12/2018 - 07:59
        +3

        no and then….
        .

        • CyberMurning on 08/12/2018 - 08:49
          +1

          And then r as in computer?

    • AdamFury on 08/12/2018 - 11:06
      +2

      I've had 2 Seagate drives fail on me where WD hasn't let me down. In saying that I feel everyone has their preference and drives they want to stay away from. WD, Seagate, Toshiba and Hitachi I always hear good and bad stories.

  • Diji1 on 08/12/2018 - 10:14
    +1

    Running games from HDD dramatically increase load times compared to SSD so I would recommend SSD.

    However, the cost per GB of storage is far higher for SSD as you probably already know so for the same money you can either have speed or much more much slower storage.

    • AdamFury on 08/12/2018 - 11:07

      Yeah that was my biggest fear in terms of how it would affect running. I might wait around for a deal on a 1 or maybe even 2 terrabyte SSD as it will be more future proofed.

  • jzdhgkd on 08/12/2018 - 10:15
    +1

    Have you been able to compare loading from an SSD vs loading from a HDD? I feel it's such a world of difference that I can't go back to gaming from a HDD unless it's small indie games. Besides for loading times however I don't believe the speed of an SSD vs HDD makes any difference to gaming unless you don't have enough ram and the game starts to use your pagefile.

    Furthermore are you really playing so many games at once that you need several TB to have them all installed? Unless you need to have all your games installed at the same time then just go for the SSD ;)

    • AdamFury on 08/12/2018 - 11:09

      I did have a few installed from a HDD previously and it died so now I'm considering my options. I sort of had this idea in my head that if I picked up a 4TB drive I could install my whole library and not worry (even though realistically I stick to 2-3 games and deviate rarely until new releases).

      I feel like now I might just wait around for a 1-2TB SSD deal and just be a little bit more selective of what I chuck on there!

  • Clear on 08/12/2018 - 11:16

    I'm currently using several 500GB+ SSDs for newer games and have noticed a notable difference in loading time for some. The older/indie games that aren't resource intensive go on the HDD instead.

    • AdamFury on 08/12/2018 - 12:11

      Thanks Clear. I’ll keep my eye out for some SSD deals over the next few weeks I think. Not too many indie games mostly more recent ones that are storage and pc intensive.

      • Clear on 08/12/2018 - 12:11

        Keep an eye out on the Samsung SSDs due to the Samsung cashback program.

  • p1 ama on 08/12/2018 - 17:24

    It depends on how large your library is and how many games you actually often play. I find that if you have a large library, then HDD + cache is usually a good compromise that works pretty well. Otherwise, what I do is only put the games I'm actually playing on an SSD, which are really only a few of the titles in my library.

  • AlienC on 09/12/2018 - 01:34
    +1

    I use a 8TB Seagate External HDD from Amazon US (bought before the policy changes stopping orders from Amazon US to Australia) for roughly $240 AUD I think around about $30 / TB not the best price but it was cheapest I could find in a short time at the time.

    It has been hucked from the external enclosure and is now sitting in my neat small form factor Desktop PC (refurbished used i7-2600 and respective motherboard / brand new GTX 1050 Ti Low Profile OC / brand new 32 gb ddr3 / brand new 2TB Micron 1100 SSD / brand new 500gb Samsung 860 EVO / brand new 8TB Seagate Mechanical HDD / slightly used Intel Centrino Wifi N Card / brand new DVD combo drive) all in a HP Compaq 8200 Elite SFF.

    Started using it in early July 2018 (this year) and been hammering it full on with Steam/Origin/Uplay/Blizzard Battlenet/GOG Galaxy/Epic Games/standalone games since then and lots of web browsing and youtube :)

    It actually only has 1.9 TB free now out of 7.27 TB storage space total.

    My Windows 10 boot up drive the 500gb Samsung 860 EVO is only halfway full with 269 GB used out of 464 GB storage space total.

    My supposed to be SSD Steam drive or the 2TB Micron 1100 SSD is actually completely empty and is right now just a back up storage drive in case my boot up SSD or everything else HDD fails (kind of doing an experiment to see how much usage and pounding it can take) with 1.85 TB free out of 1.86 TB total storage space.

    So yeah I might add another HDD in future as honestly my loading times are fine for my use case scenario.

    The premium of SSD vs HDD which is about 6 - 10 times right now ($20 - 30 / TB for mechanical hard drives vs $200 / TB for solid state drives) is quite still insane even for the benefit of a few seconds but honestly it depends on you. Many people pay extra for the saved time in loading times and gaming and just overall speedy computer browsing.

    For the operating system it is definitely pretty neat for games it can be also but depending on the size of your library you may get jealous when some games can fit while others can't.

    In a perfect world it would all be SSD imho with HDD's for the media such as music, documents and videos.

    I think streaming even benefits from SSD but not sure don't quote me on that I think HDD is still fine though.

    TL;DR I would go HDD as it is way cheaper and can get you more space for your buck with a small but sizeable ssd for your boot up operating system drive and commonly used programs and apps etc

    Hope this helps. I wrote this post for both yours and my benefit so I don't forget / remember some time in the future as my memory has been fading and been funny pretty fast very recently.

    Good luck and god speed.

    • AdamFury on 09/12/2018 - 02:18

      Thanks for your detailed response I really appreciate you taking the time. Good to know you have had success with it do you happen to know the RPM of the drive you are using? Sounds like your use case is very similar to what I want to achieve!

      • AlienC on 09/12/2018 - 02:41
        +2

        This is the exact item I purchased and had shucked into my system.

        Seagate Expansion 8TB Desktop External Hard Drive USB 3.0 (STEB8000100)

        https://www.amazon.com/gp/product/B01HAPGEIE/ref=oh_aui_deta…

        Price: $138.04 + $12.02 Shipping & Import Fees Deposit to Australia Details

        It cost me about see below (for 2, I gave some to my housemate as a present for his Xbox One S and windows laptop)

        Item(s) Subtotal: AUD 459.22
        Shipping & Handling: AUD 28.14
        Gift Wrap: AUD 10.47
        Total before tax: AUD 497.83
        Estimated tax to be collected: AUD 0.00
        Grand Total: AUD 497.83

        Showing now $252.22 AUD

        This was around 23 July 2017 so quite a while ago and they are roughly the same price maybe slightly cheaper now but not much.

        According to the questions and answers part of the page down below the 8TB one is 7200 rpm.

        Hope you get to your price point and goals and manage to achieve whatever it is you want to achieve.

        Any more questions regarding my setup like monitor and speakers or headsets and peripherals let me know I am almost there and honestly for me this is just stage 1 of my desktop pc journey adventure just starting from the bottom or lowest point and experimenting my way to the top! haha lol :)

        Want to try VR maybe next but waiting for more improvements and developments to turn up like some popular game to mainstream revolutionise it.

        All the best and god speed.

  • TheWoos on 11/12/2018 - 00:07
    +1

    Do you have M.2 slots on your Motherboard ? Intel setup ?

    Have you considered running a 4/8TB HDD with an Optane M.2 ? Have on in my setup behind my SSD's for O/S and primary load games but definately a good investment and cheap.

    If you want the simple answer buy a large Hard Drive. You can transfer game files between the SSD and HDD as you use them, just put the game(s) you are playuing that month on the SSD and the others on the HDD and move around as you like.

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