Question for new HDD

[Granfalloon]

I am planning on building a new computer, an upgrade from my 10 years old Desktop. However, even with the old Desktop, I have at least 2TB of files to transfer.

 

I game, I do work, I develop personal software projects, I hoard data (not a lot for now).

 

I am new to building personal pc though.

 

I want to pick an ideal HDD focused on reliability, though good performance is nice as well. I would buy two for the secondary to be backup.

 

I came across WD Ultrastar DC, while I originally planned to get WD Black.

 

Could I use an Ultrastar DC series to install OS, play games, do work all the same if I were to use a WD Black?

 

Ignore storage size and cost because they are not relevant, I will decide on those. I am asking purely about reliably, operation, and performance comparisons.

 

https://documents.westerndigital.com/content/dam/doc-library/en_us/assets/public/western-digital/product/data-center-drives/ultrastar-dc-hc300-series/data-sheet-ultrastar-dc-hc310.pdf

https://documents.westerndigital.com/content/dam/doc-library/en_us/assets/public/western-digital/product/data-center-drives/ultrastar-dc-hc500-series/data-sheet-ultrastar-dc-hc510.pdf

https://documents.westerndigital.com/content/dam/doc-library/en_us/assets/public/western-digital/product/internal-drives/wd-black-hdd/data-sheet-wd-black-pc-hard-drives-2879-771434.pdf

 

Thank you.

[RGProductions]

I would strongly recommend storing your OS and core programs on an SSD, it helps a lot. 

[Mr.Humble]

Get a 500GB-1TB SSD for the OS and whatever cheapest drive at the capacity you need. If you want a better one look for WD Red or Seagate Ironwolf.

 

You do not need a datacenter grade drive for personal use.

[WereCatf]

42 minutes ago, Granfalloon said:

performance

"Performance", when talking about mechanical HDDs, is an oxymoron. Use SSDs for stuff where you need performance, like e.g. OS, apps and games, and HDDs for stuff where performance isn't such a crucial thing, like e.g. pictures, movies, books etc. Even a really low-end SSD beats the fastest HDDs hands-down; no need to get an expensive, high-end NVME SSD as a bog-standard, pretty cheap SATA SSD is perfectly good.

[Granfalloon]

45 minutes ago, RGProductions said:

I would strongly recommend storing your OS and core programs on an SSD, it helps a lot. 

I understand, but if I installed an HDD such as Ultrastar and used it for day to day operations (turn on, turn off), would it break or do harm?

[Granfalloon]

11 minutes ago, WereCatf said:

"Performance", when talking about mechanical HDDs, is an oxymoron. Use SSDs for stuff where you need performance, like e.g. OS, apps and games, and HDDs for stuff where performance isn't such a crucial thing, like e.g. pictures, movies, books etc. Even a really low-end SSD beats the fastest HDDs hands-down; no need to get an expensive, high-end NVME SSD as a bog-standard, pretty cheap SATA SSD is perfectly good. 

Yea, I should have known better when asking for HDD "performance", I just want an HDD that is large and reliable (can take a heavy load of data transfer and store them for a long time with minimum maintenance) Thanks anyway.

[WereCatf]

8 minutes ago, Granfalloon said:

I understand, but if I installed an HDD such as Ultrastar and used it for day to day operations (turn on, turn off), would it break or do harm?

All HDDs (and SSDs) break eventually. That said, you really do not need an expensive Ultrastar or such -- both me and my boyfriend, for example, have used plain-ass WD Blues for years now on our desktops with hundreds upon hundreds of power-on/shutdown - cycles. I'd rather recommend you taking regular backups than spending money on a more expensive HDD -- a slight increase in reliability won't save you, when the drive eventually dies anyway, but a backup will.

[Granfalloon]

7 minutes ago, WereCatf said:

All HDDs (and SSDs) break eventually. That said, you really do not need an expensive Ultrastar or such -- both me and my boyfriend, for example, have used plain-ass WD Blues for years now on our desktops with hundreds upon hundreds of power-on/shutdown - cycles. I'd rather recommend you taking regular backups than spending money on a more expensive HDD -- a slight increase in reliability won't save you, when the drive eventually dies anyway, but a backup will.

Yea that makes sense, thanks

[phoenixflower]

Since you did mention you do software projects which is probably related to your work.  If you want large capacity drives but would like them to be fast.  Then I would recommend using a system that provision storage for you.  Maybe something like proxmox, and using PCI-E passthrough to get the performance you want in a VM.  If you take two optane drives alongside spinning rust you'd be surprised how fast you can stuff to go.  I use proxmox as my daily driver for my VMs and use it to support my various linux distros that I develop for alongside Mac OS X and Windows.  You'll definitely need specific hardware to pull it off, but everything you need exists in the consumer domain.  Optane is more of an enterprisy thing but it's certainly made a splash in the consumer markets.

 

 

If you want something simple and easy then just get a big ssd and get a personal Backblaze plan for offsite backups.