Hdd choice help.

[Rafax]

So guys im getting a new hdd and would like some second opinions about this im getting a 500GB one and the choice comes down between these 3 to me:

Seagate Barracuda 7200 rpm
WD caviar blue 7200 rpm
Samsung Spinpoint f3 7200 rpm

So which one would you buy for main hdd(system drive and storage for games).
Ty for the help in advance!

[demonskies]

The cav blue for sure.

[Rafax]

Any real reason for recomending the blue? I did do some research and most people seem to recommend the spinpoint has being both faster and lasting longer dont know if its true .

[vesseblah]

Samsung Spinpoint F3 is faster, Caviar Blue is 'better' brand.

Also Samsung no longer manufactures HDDs so it's old stock, probably around year old which is not a problem per se, just pointing out... I'm using four Spinpoint F3's myself as storage space and never had problems with any of 'em.

Look also into 1TB versions in addition to 500GB, usually the price difference is very small.

[demonskies]

As vesseblah noted Spinpoint is faster, but more than likely between it and a cav blue the difference in speed will be less notable in real world over benchmark. Have a cav blue in my wifes build and it runs like a champ and its her main drive with WoW, D3, Skyrim off of. Hardly even noticeable in differnce from one of my older smaller 32 cache blacks in real world. Reliability in Western Digital drives tends to be alot higher than other companies.

[vesseblah]

Reliability in Western Digital drives tends to be alot higher than other companies.

Failure rates are somewhere in 1-2% range on all brands, odds are neither will be bad.

[demonskies]

Thats why I said "tends" which also is all perspective I guess. lol.

[Deleted]

Seagate bought Samsung's drive business and were using Samsung's name to brand a while ago (not sure if that is still the case), but the F3s are a couple of years old now, so that is probably old stock. I would go for that, but definitely check if you can still return it on warranty and if you can't get something else.

Also I'm not sure what it's like where you live, but in the UK a 1 TB drive is only ~20% more expensive than a 500 GB drive so have a look at the prices.

My personal preference based on blind brand preference would be as follows:-

Samsung (IF it's not Seagate rebrand AND you get a warranty with it) > Western Digital (NOT a Green drive) > Seagate

It's always best to find out if any of the drives have freak issues though.