Choosing the right hard drive

GoldenSW · September 3, 2022

Hello! I plan to change my PC's hard drive and I've done some research before writing this, yet I'm still undecided. I would greatly appreciate some help. Here are some considerations:

• Speed - 90% of the activity on this drive will be torrenting, usually large files of around 50-100 GBs using a 1 Gbps internet connection. When torrenting with local seeders and peers I was able to hit on occasions 110-115 MB/s on my current drive so definitely capable of more than this.

• Noise - my PC is in my bedroom just a few meters away from my bed, so silent operation is a must.

• Reliability - I'm looking for something which is known to be reliable, at least relatively speaking.

• Price - I don't want to go over the top. Ideally I would go for an 8 TB drive, but I could probably lower that to 6 if needed. I just want it to properly do its job in the current scenario. For example, I don't need a 230 MB/s drive, if 190 MB/s would still saturate my internet's bandwith.

Before researching I wanted to buy the Seagate Barracuda but realized it uses SMR and I don't think any SMR drives would be ideal in my situation.

As a result I've looked into CMR NAS drives and saw recommendations for WD Red Plus & WD Red Pro, the Pro seems to be faster, but aprox 5 dB louder.

There's also Seagate. People said Ironwolf and Ironwolf Pro perform well but are louder even though after checking the data sheets they seem almost identical. Any firsthand experience? :)

LIGISTX · September 3, 2022

32 minutes ago, GoldenSW said:

Hello! I plan to change my PC's hard drive and I've done some research before writing this, yet I'm still undecided. I would greatly appreciate some help. Here are some considerations:

• Speed - 90% of the activity on this drive will be torrenting, usually large files of around 50-100 GBs using a 1 Gbps internet connection. When torrenting with local seeders and peers I was able to hit on occasions 110-115 MB/s on my current drive so definitely capable of more than this.

• Noise - my PC is in my bedroom just a few meters away from my bed, so silent operation is a must.

• Reliability - I'm looking for something which is known to be reliable, at least relatively speaking.

• Price - I don't want to go over the top. Ideally I would go for an 8 TB drive, but I could probably lower that to 6 if needed. I just want it to properly do its job in the current scenario. For example, I don't need a 230 MB/s drive, if 190 MB/s would still saturate my internet's bandwith.

Before researching I wanted to buy the Seagate Barracuda but realized it uses SMR and I don't think any SMR drives would be ideal in my situation.

As a result I've looked into CMR NAS drives and saw recommendations for WD Red Plus & WD Red Pro, the Pro seems to be faster, but aprox 5 dB louder.

There's also Seagate. People said Ironwolf and Ironwolf Pro perform well but are louder even though after checking the data sheets they seem almost identical. Any firsthand experience?

1 gigabit can’t do more then 120ish MBps… 1 gigabit /8 is 125 MB, so your current 110-115 is all you will ever see anyways.

Any harddrive is fine, there are only a few manufacturers left anyways. A seagate or WD drive, of whatever model you find cheapest. Reliability comes down to luck more then anything else, so again, just buy whatever is cheapest from WD or seagate.