Western digital (Caviar Black) vs Seagate Barracuda 7200.12 - Hardware & Software

I'm debating on what HDD to get with my new custom pc, but, I can't figure out which HDD to get. Googling the difference between these drives really confuses me, some people like western digital, some people like the Seagate barracuda 7200.12. Please if you have any experience with these HDDS tell me which is better. I want a fast drive but also one that doesn't fail on me. [editline]3rd November 2013[/editline] Also, on the topic of hard drives, is it necessary to run raid? and how/what would be the best fastest and most reliable way to run a SSD + HDD?

Most people will tell you to just get a Caviar Blue because they're cheaper and for the most part perform similarly to black, supposedly Caviar Black is one of their more premium standard drives, but I haven't seen any statistics to suggest that they fail less often than blues or greens, then again I haven't really looked into it. This should be a solid choice for a 1TB drive, assuming your looking for a 3.5", 1TB drive, that is. [url]http://pcpartpicker.com/part/western-digital-internal-hard-drive-wd10ezex[/url] On RAID: There's a few options with RAID, most of the time in this section when we refer to it however we're talking about RAID 0, Which splits the the data saved between 2 drives that doubles read/write speeds and the amount of storage available on the RAID volume. I would not recommend doing this for your Primary Partition (or with important documents/files) however, as if either one of the drives in RAID 0 fails, all of the data in the RAID volume is lost, despite the other drive functioning. Running RAID is not at all necessary, but can come with a nice speed boost. I would say there are 3 good options for using an SSD+HDD combo. SSD as your main drive, that you install your Operating System onto, and any other programs you want to access either frequently or very quickly. This will make your system boot very quickly, as well as load anything else that you install on it very quickly. Make sure not to save most of your data on here, and to only install necessary programs in the 'programs files' folders. Typically people use a 64-128GB SSD for this kind of thing. SSD as a Cache Drive, if you get a chipset that supports it (I know most newer intel chipsets with RAID support do), you can use a smaller SSD and the caching software will automaticly detect what will gave you good performance gains and will load data onto the SSD where the system will load it from instead of looking on the slower HDD, this should increase boot times, as well as the load times of frequently used programs. Typically people use a 16-32GB SSD for this kind of setup, it's not unheard of for some to use a 64GB drive, though at that point you might as well use it as an OS drive. SSD for specific programs, You can simply install the SSD like any other normal drive, and either install or move programs that you want to load as fast as possible onto it, which would be good for games or large programs and such that you're specifically looking for a performance boost in. In example, if you play skyrim or Dragon age a lot, and find that the loading times in these games are really wasting lots of your time, you could install them (or use [url=http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Symbolic_link]Symbolic Links[/url] to move the game's file) to the SSD and greatly reduce load-times. Also, how much are you willing to spend on your storage setup, and what specifically are you looking for it to do, so we might be able to give recommendations?

Well I was looking at a £100 SSD and a £65 caviar black so £165. I'd go a bit higher if it came with a performance boost or something though. My current plan was to have the SSD as my operating system then have the other caviar black as a storage drive, games, movies, images ... etc. I heard SSD's performance drop permanently the more data you put on them, is this true?

Make sure to enable TRIM to help protect the SSD's lifespan, and I think I heard as a rule of thumb not to fill the SSD past 80% of it's maximum capacity, not sure how true this is. edit: What motherboard do you have? Edit: This is the general kind of recommendation you'd get around here, though I'm not entirely sure how brand vs. brand prices compare in the UK compared to the US. [url]http://uk.pcpartpicker.com/p/DjnS[/url]

[QUOTE=soulharvester;42740324]Make sure to enable TRIM to help protect the SSD's lifespan, and I think I heard as a rule of thumb not to fill the SSD past 80% of it's maximum capacity, not sure how true this is. edit: What motherboard do you have? Edit: This is the general kind of recommendation you'd get around here, though I'm not entirely sure how brand vs. brand prices compare in the UK compared to the US. [url]http://uk.pcpartpicker.com/p/DjnS[/url][/QUOTE] none yet but thinking of the asus z87 pro

[QUOTE=Lurklet;42740432]none yet but thinking of the asus z87 pro[/QUOTE] Any reason why? The only reason you should pay more than $160 for a motherboard is if you have more than dual GPU support. You are not going to use the features of that motherboard over a $150 G45-gaming or z87x-d3h.

[QUOTE=flayne;42740450]Any reason why? The only reason you should pay more than $160 for a motherboard is if you have more than dual GPU support. You are not going to use the features of that motherboard over a $150 G45-gaming or z87x-d3h.[/QUOTE] I am thinking about it. I just want a future-proof motherboard so I don't have to get a new one a year or so down the line then I may upgrade to SLI

I'd recommend avoiding SLI/Crossfire if at all possible.

[QUOTE=soulharvester;42740564]I'd recommend avoiding SLI/Crossfire if at all possible.[/QUOTE] why

[QUOTE=Lurklet;42740557]I am thinking about it. I just want a future-proof motherboard so I don't have to get a new one a year or so down the line then I may upgrade to SLI[/QUOTE] Future proof motherboard? Do you think spending $50 more on a motherboard makes it last longer? You are also aware that the z87 pro doesn't support anything above SLI as does the G45-gaming, z87x-d3h, ASRock, and Asus equivalents, right? You are just wasting $50 and not getting anything useful in return. [QUOTE=Lurklet;42740600]why[/QUOTE] It's a very buggy thing which has a myriad of problems. Games not optimized for it can actually experience a drop in performance. On the other hand it can provide performance like no other and is usually cheaper than the equivalently performing single graphics card. when it does work. It's up to you, but it's advisable to always get a better single graphics card then two lesser graphics cards.

[QUOTE=flayne;42740786]Future proof motherboard? Do you think spending $50 more on a motherboard makes it last longer? You are also aware that the z87 pro doesn't support anything above SLI as does the G45-gaming, z87x-d3h, ASRock, and Asus equivalents, right? You are just wasting $50 and not getting anything useful in return. It's a very buggy thing which has a myriad of problems. Games not optimized for it can actually experience a drop in performance. On the other hand it can provide performance like no other and is usually cheaper than the equivalently performing single graphics card. when it does work. It's up to you, but it's advisable to always get a better single graphics card then two lesser graphics cards.[/QUOTE] I read that the z87 pro was far better at overclocking among a few other things. I thought it might have been better, I'll be researching parts for this pc for a while. Nothing is written in stone yet. As for the SLI thing, Thank you. I'm pretty new to building pcs (in fact this is my first,) so, help like this is much appreciated. Thank you.

Definitely the WD Black

[QUOTE=h3inrich;42747512]Definitely the WD Black[/QUOTE] The ST1000DM003 is the fastest mechanical drive you can get. I have two of them in RAID0 and they beat a bunch of single SSDs in raw read/write speeds.

[QUOTE=GiGaBiTe;42750066]The ST1000DM003 is the fastest mechanical drive you can get. I have two of them in RAID0 and they beat a bunch of single SSDs in raw read/write speeds.[/QUOTE] I heard seagate barracudas were unreliable compared to WD blacks. Is this true at all?

[QUOTE=Lurklet;42754477]I heard seagate barracudas were unreliable compared to WD blacks. Is this true at all?[/QUOTE] The unreliability nonsense came from some older models of Seagate drives ran hotter than other drives (due to the higher amperage in the voice coils.) People weren't cooling the drives properly, which caused them to overheat and fail. Out of all of the Seagate drives I've bought since 1997 (over 150), I've only had 4-5 of them fail from issues with the drives themselves. I've also had a number of WD drives. Their drives in the mid 90s and early 2000s were awful, but they're mostly fine these days. I've had a number of weird failures with them though (spindle lock, exploding platters, etc.)

[QUOTE=GiGaBiTe;42760515]The unreliability nonsense came from some older models of Seagate drives ran hotter than other drives (due to the higher amperage in the voice coils.) People weren't cooling the drives properly, which caused them to overheat and fail. Out of all of the Seagate drives I've bought since 1997 (over 150), I've only had 4-5 of them fail from issues with the drives themselves. I've also had a number of WD drives. Their drives in the mid 90s and early 2000s were awful, but they're mostly fine these days. I've had a number of weird failures with them though (spindle lock, exploding platters, etc.)[/QUOTE] Thank you! Just curious, why did you buy 150 drives?

some people buy parts for other people, or maintain there workplace. Im sure they aren't just used in his PCs

[QUOTE=Sharkcheater;42765239]some people buy parts for other people, or maintain there workplace. Im sure they aren't just used in his PCs[/QUOTE] I know that's what I thought.

[QUOTE=Lurklet;42761704]Thank you! Just curious, why did you buy 150 drives?[/QUOTE] 150 over the course of 16 years. I do lots of computer repair and some system building. Sometimes machines require new drives to replace failed ones.