Feliks

Thank you JM21 and everyone else as well! All the answers here were appreciated. (I went with the FireCuda).

Thank you so much, it really helps to see someone using the same product, seriously that makes me feel a million times better! You mention SeaGate's updated them recently, do you have the updated versions or the older ones? And also how long has it been? Thank you so much again!

Thanks guys. And any idea about recoverability? As I said, I know to always have back-ups but it's just inevitable that not everything always gets backed up soon enough. Thanks a lot for the answers though, they are miles better than the ones on Tom's Hardware, so I appreciate it a lot.

I tried asking this question on the Tom's Hardware forums, which 2 years ago were way better for getting answers. The answers I got there this time (all 3 of them) weren't even answers; not a single one actually answered the question, it's like people just copy pasted things there in hopes of getting selected as best answer. I wouldn't be surprised if that's what they did. Anyways, hello there! I'm Feliks and I need a storage drive for my laptop, and for the boot drive I already have an SSD. What I use this computer for is/will be a mix of gaming, school work, coding, possibly VMs, etc; whatever my heart's desire. I use a lot of storage and I don't like to use more than 1/2 of the space available on a drive at any time anyways. If there were bigger drives available for laptops, I'd probably go for it. The FireCuda's the biggest available for the laptop. It's important to me that the drive is reliable, but speed is also important (though as long as it somewhat compares with my desktop 7200RPM drive it should be fine). I am between the 2.5" HGST Travelstar 1TB "normal" mechanical hard drive and the 2.5" Seagate Firecuda 2TB "hybrid" hard drive. I honestly am inclined towards each one; I really want the FireCuda because of the extra storage and somewhat because of the speed though I've heard mixed things about it especially since the mechanical part of the hard drive is only 5400 RPM (some say this doesn't matter because of the way it's designed). The TravelStar has great reviews across the board and I trust HGST much more. Also it's 7200RPM, but on the flip side it's just a plain old normal hard drive. I am worried the data will be at risk both because of SeaGate in general being considered a "less reliable" hard drive brand and because of what was said about this particular drive at the bottom of this page http://www.overclock.net/t/1619691/laptop-drives-seagat... (scroll to the bottom; it's the last post, by a guy who "does data recovery for a living"). It is important to me that the data's at least recoverable, yes I make backups but still, it's not like EVERYTHING gets instantly backed up (please don't give me a spiel about that... just don't).PLEASE do not recommend to me to buy a 1TB SSD or any other SSD. I HAVE an SSD and I simply cannot afford a 1TB one and I cannot have any less than 1TB on my storage drive, as you can see I already want even more than 1TB if possible. (If you insist on a 1TB SSD, feel free to send me one for free!) Thank you!