Drive for HTPC

AlexStriz · January 14, 2015

Hey guys,

I'm buying a new drive for a build I have coming up. It's going to be an HTPC, so a large capacity drive is needed (going to be lots of movies, photos, etc. on it).

I've think narrowed drive selection to three drives. They all cost around the same, with the SSHD being a few dollars more. Nothing too major.

http://strawpoll.me/3402795/r - If you guys could vote in the strawpoll, as well as posting views in comments below (if you have any), that would be great. I just want to get a general consensus of what everyone would want, that's why there's a poll

It's kinda between the two Seagate drives, but I threw in the WD drive so I don't look like a complete fanboy . Also it's going to be in the living room, so possibly a Green would be good? It's a 5400rpm drive, so it would be quieter. How much quieter though?

Also, are there any other drives ~$100 that I should look into? Toshiba and Hitachi have some drives in the price range, but I've never had experience with them.

Thanks y'all

dragoon20005 · January 14, 2015

pick the cheapest drive you can get

most HDD mostly perform the same

Hybrid Drives are only good if you run applications and load OS multiple times

the firmware in the SHDD will learn your patterns and pre cache your frequently accessed files and programs

dadasmithywinkle · January 14, 2015

I'd go with the SSHD, as I like the near SSD speeds. If not worrying about speed, get the 3TB Seagate.

AlexStriz · January 14, 2015

pick the cheapest drive you can get

most HDD mostly perform the same

Hybrid Drives are only good if you run applications and load OS multiple times

the firmware in the SHDD will learn your patterns and pre cache your frequently accessed files and programs

.. I got so excited that SAV1OUR replied to my thread (not that I'm disappointed that its you ) Oh well. Thanks for the response though

If the drives are going to be just for movie watching, perhaps some emailing and general browsing, would it be worth it to get a hybrid drive? I have one in my laptop, but I have never been able to compare it to a normal HDD, so I don't know how much faster they are.

Also, do SSHD's help when waking up the computer/drive from sleep?

AlexStriz · January 14, 2015

I'd go with the SSHD, as I like the near SSD speeds. If not worrying about speed, get the 3TB Seagate.

How close are they to SSD speeds though? My laptop boots in ~18 seconds, and it has an SSHD (I have a lot of programs that start on boot up, though).

My PC boots in ~7 seconds, but that's with a different OS and less login items

dadasmithywinkle · January 14, 2015

How close are they to SSD speeds though? My laptop boots in ~18 seconds, and it has an SSHD (I have a lot of programs that start on boot up, though).

My PC boots in ~7 seconds, but that's with a different OS and less login items

Im not sure, as Ive never owned an SSHD before.

dragoon20005 · January 14, 2015

.. I got so excited that SAV1OUR replied to my thread (not that I'm disappointed that its you ) Oh well. Thanks for the response though

If the drives are going to be just for movie watching, perhaps some emailing and general browsing, would it be worth it to get a hybrid drive? I have one in my laptop, but I have never been able to compare it to a normal HDD, so I don't know how much faster they are.

Also, do SSHD's help when waking up the computer/drive from sleep?

I also have a SHHD here but have yet to load the proper OS for actual testing

when the PC goes to sleep, the snapshot of the open programs and files will be saved to the HDD

how fast it recovers will depends on the HDD speed and other factors which i am not sure of yet, like if you got 4GB of RAM, 4GB will be allocated on the HDD for Hibernate/sleep mode.