Is an HDD still worth it (For games?

[ryanmassey1337]

I was going to buy a prebuilt recently instead of building it myself, because... It's not worth waiting. Cryptocurrency will continue to rise and fall. It won't be stopped... but I realized that most pre-builts include an SSD for the OS and a 1 TB hard drive for games instead of a bigger SSD... and so I looked into it and apparently the only thing bad about the HDD (for games) was load times (of course) and occasional microstuters. Is it that noticeable though? Anyone care to explain their experience with a hard drive?

[dcgreen2k]

I've never seen any stutters when gaming on a hard drive. Is it still worth it? Well, would you rather buy a 2TB hard drive for 60-70 dollars or a 2TB SSD for a couple hundred?

[tikker]

22 minutes ago, ryanmassey1337 said:

I was going to buy a prebuilt recently instead of building it myself, because... It's not worth waiting. Cryptocurrency will continue to rise and fall. It won't be stopped... but I realized that most pre-builts include an SSD for the OS and a 1 TB hard drive for games instead of a bigger SSD... and so I looked into it and apparently the only thing bad about the HDD (for games) was load times (of course) and occasional microstuters. Is it that noticeable though? Anyone care to explain their experience with a hard drive?

I've always had my games on a HDD and like @thegreengamers never noticed stutters because of it. Loading times also rarely bother me. Spare your wallet a bit and go with the hard drive

[ProjectBox153]

Considering mechanical drives are damn cheap compared to solid state drives, they’re fine. I’ve not hadn’t issues with them (unless you have Windows 10 installed on one). 

[Ryujin2003]

24 minutes ago, ryanmassey1337 said:

I was going to buy a prebuilt recently instead of building it myself, because... It's not worth waiting. Cryptocurrency will continue to rise and fall. It won't be stopped... but I realized that most pre-builts include an SSD for the OS and a 1 TB hard drive for games instead of a bigger SSD... and so I looked into it and apparently the only thing bad about the HDD (for games) was load times (of course) and occasional microstuters. Is it that noticeable though? Anyone care to explain their experience with a hard drive?

You need a drive that sounds at 7200rpm. Also, if this drive is exclusively for games, you shouldn't ever experience micro studders because the driver wouldn't be handling and IO requests for the OS.

 

Most prebuilt systems have 5200rpm drivers because the are cheaper and sometimes "more reliable", but that part is arguable at best. I use WD Black HDD for games.

[dcgreen2k]

4 minutes ago, Ryujin2003 said:

You need a drive that sounds at 7200rpm. Also, if this drive is exclusively for games, you shouldn't ever experience micro studders because the driver wouldn't be handling and IO requests for the OS.

 

Most prebuilt systems have 5200rpm drivers because the are cheaper and sometimes "more reliable", but that part is arguable at best. I use WD Black HDD for games.

I've played games on a 5400rpm drive (still do) with Windows 10 and had no problems at all. GTA 5 ran at 60fps perfectly, even with my 750Ti.

[grimreeper132]

depending on the budget yes. As if you have a large game library and can only afford a small SSD a HDD is a better call as the capacity of the HDD will be much higher for the same price. And if you have other programmes and files on the PC which are large in size HDDs make even more sense cost wise

[seagate_surfer]

For gaming use, most types of games don't rely heavily on the load-time performance improvements in SSDs, so a lot of people will have a small SSD for their operating system plus maybe a few more frequently used applications, then a larger HDD for their games/general storage. The exception is if you're into open-world type gaming, then you'd also see quicker loading of new map areas as you moved into them. The in-between solution would be an SSHD, or Solid-State Hybrid Drive (current Seagate branding: FireCuda) which utilizes an SSD cache for your most frequently accessed data, along with a much larger spinning storage capacity so that you still get bang-for-your-buck capacity.

We have a couple of charts to help you get a better feel for all of this:
 

The first one compares startup times across several popular games on a traditional spinning 7200 RPM HDD, our SSHD, and an M.2 SSD (128GB). The white is for SSD, the orange is for our SSHD, and the gray is for the 7200 spinning HDD.
 

Startup Times
 

The next one compares the first 3 days of gaming storage utilization across several popular titles, and SYSmark ratings from various drive types and combinations. First of the grays is 7200 RPM 1TB spinning HDD, second (lightest gray) is our SSHD, third (darkest gray) is an SSD + 7200 RPM HDD combo, purple is SSD + our SSHD combo, and lastly blue is SSD.
 

First 3 Days Gaming Storage Utilization

[jefire411]

On 2/8/2018 at 6:50 AM, tikker said:

I've always had my games on a HDD and like @thegreengamers never noticed stutters because of it. Loading times also rarely bother me. Spare your wallet a bit and go with the hard drive

would you rather get the regular 2 tb seagate baracuda 3.5 7200 rpm or the iron hawk pro 2 tb for more warrwnty, better peace of mind of reliability and slightly faster speeds. do you think ita worth it 

[tikker]

17 minutes ago, jefire411 said:

would you rather get the regular 2 tb seagate baracuda 3.5 7200 rpm or the iron hawk pro 2 tb for more warrwnty, better peace of mind of reliability and slightly faster speeds. do you think ita worth it 

Never heard of the iron hawk series, only IronWolf or  SkyHawk  Anyway you'll be fine with any drive, though the Barracuda is the one marketed for general purpose whereas then other two are geared towards NAS or surveillance setups. Any of those will serve you  just fine and the Barracude will most likely be the cheapest. I would buy the Barracuda myself for general use.

[jefire411]

22 minutes ago, tikker said:

Never heard of the iron hawk series, only IronWolf or  SkyHawk  Anyway you'll be fine with any drive, though the Barracuda is the one marketed for general purpose whereas then other two are geared towards NAS or surveillance setups. Any of those will serve you  just fine and the Barracude will most likely be the cheapest. I would buy the Barracuda myself for general use.

I meant Iron wolf haha sorry I feel bad now hehe

[jefire411]

Just now, jefire411 said:

I meant Iron wolf haha sorry I feel bad now hehe but I was talking about the Iron Wolf Pro, which has 5 year warranty and 2 year data recovery service. It is also a little above 200 mbs in read and write tests and decent random w/r in user benchmark.

 

[tikker]

12 minutes ago, jefire411 said:

I meant Iron wolf haha sorry I feel bad now hehe

I'm planning to get the Iron Wolfs myself for my NAS as they're a little cheaper than WD Reds. If you value the extra warranty go for it. The price difference here is only €10 now that I actually check, so no real reason to not go for the Iron Wolf I guess if it's practically no difference.