Replace dead HDD with SSD or another HDD

[Michaelsws]

Im still pretty new to the PC building industry, I have only built 1 pc in 2015 and have been upgrading it over the years.

 

HDD model : Seagate BarraCuda 1Tb 7200rpm 

 

My HDD which was bought Dec 2018 failed/bad sector at June 2019. Got it replaced after 1 month. Again replacement failed Dec 2019 and got another. Now HDD kinda failing.

Every time I try to install a Steam game it just keeps crashing the drive (DISK WRITE ERROR) . The drive will not be in file explorer for a few mins then it will come back. Also some buzzing noises can be heard when the drive dies. Strangely i can still download and watch my videos using that drive. I am not sure that its failing again or its just Steam problems.

Which comes to the reason why I am here. 

I would like to ask for advice, Should I 

1. Live with a HDD which kinda works but cant keep games

2. Buy another HDD and risking it failing in 3-5 months

3. Buy a 512 SSD (my SSD has never failed me in 4 years)

4. Try to fix the HDD (please give tips on how to fix)

 

I would definitely love to hear some advice as PC parts are expensive in my country and im just a student. 

Note: I do not shake/hit my desk, The HDD is installed in a drawer bracket, I only moved my pc 2 times this year which was in Feb and Mar. This is so no one can say that I have been shaking my PC.

 

TLDR; 

Replace HDD or Try to fix HDD or Buy SSD

 

EDIT: I have been playing Valorant and League of Legends on my HDD and its doing fine but the problem only occurs with steam games

[Bombastinator]

HDDs don’t fix all that well.  You can lock out bad sectors but once they start to go they tend to not stop.  So it’s replace.  The issue is with what? HHDs are a whole lot slower than SSDs but they’re also a lot larger relative to cost.  One budget solution is split the difference.  A small SSD is often not expensive.  Win10 allows regular SSDs to be used as cache for HHDs which can speed them up a lot. So the move is to buy a small ssd AND an HDD and set part of the SSD to hold the OS only, and use a partition of the SSD as cache for the HDD to speed it up.  A bigger SSD will go faster but cost more.  If you can only buy one thing for some reason an SSD is better for most things. 

[ImAlsoRan]

Fixing hard drives is an uncommon event. Due to the nature of the discs, they will always be harder to fix and higher risk. You can get an SSD and a Hard Drive in conjunction, and store important games and Windows on the SSD. Hard Drive failure is uncommon as long as the drive isn't shaken and doesn't experience force, so make sure you get a good brand.

[Michaelsws]

30 minutes ago, Bombastinator said:

HDDs don’t fix all that well.  You can lock out bad sectors but once they start to go they tend to not stop.  So it’s replace.  The issue is with what? HHDs are a whole lot slower than SSDs but they’re also a lot larger relative to cost.  One budget solution is split the difference.  A small SSD is often not expensive.  Win10 allows regular SSDs to be used as cache for HHDs which can speed them up a lot. So the move is to buy a small ssd AND an HDD and set part of the SSD to hold the OS only, and use a partition of the SSD as cache for the HDD to speed it up.  A bigger SSD will go faster but cost more.  If you can only buy one thing for some reason an SSD is better for most things. 

Thanks for the reply. As i stated PC parts are expensive here so i cant buy both but i will take your advice to buy an SSD into consideration. As i do not mind smaller capacity.

7 minutes ago, ImAlsoRan said:

Fixing hard drives is an uncommon event. Due to the nature of the discs, they will always be harder to fix and higher risk. You can get an SSD and a Hard Drive in conjunction, and store important games and Windows on the SSD. Hard Drive failure is uncommon as long as the drive isn't shaken and doesn't experience force, so make sure you get a good brand.

Thanks for the reply. As i stated pc parts are expensive here so i cant really buy both. You mentioned about HDD failure being uncommon with good brands, are seagate and WD good brands? (i had problems with seagate and just wanna know if its just 1 bad hardware)

[ImAlsoRan]

Just now, Michaelsws said:

Thanks for the reply. As i stated pc parts are expensive here so i cant really buy both. You mentioned about HDD failure being uncommon with good brands, are seagate and WD good brands? (i had problems with seagate and just wanna know if its just 1 bad hardware)

I've only had one Seagate drive fail on me, and I've had many Seagate and WD drives. You were probably just part of the 1% that gets a bad drive.

[Bombastinator]

12 minutes ago, Michaelsws said:

Thanks for the reply. As i stated PC parts are expensive here so i cant buy both but i will take your advice to buy an SSD into consideration. As i do not mind smaller capacity.

Thanks for the reply. As i stated pc parts are expensive here so i cant really buy both. You mentioned about HDD failure being uncommon with good brands, are seagate and WD good brands? (i had problems with seagate and just wanna know if its just 1 bad hardware)

If you don’t mind smaller capacity it’s not even close.  SSD aren’t just faster they’re a LOT faster.  It will be like you bought a whole new computer.  They do wear differently though which is a reason HHDs are still around.  HHDs wear by platter revolution which effectively means computer uptime. SSDs wear by number of writes.  So not reading, just writing. This is why they were popular for OS drives as the OS isn’t written to a lot and they can last a long time that way. Constant writes can wear them quickly though. SSDs in server farms can last as little as a few months. 
 

One thing to take note of though is SSDs don’t like to be completely filled.  HHDs don’t like it either, but SSDs like it less.