DexRain Posted May 5, 2014 Posted May 5, 2014 So, I'm currently debating between buying a 1tb Velociraptor or a larger (say 2~3tb) WD Caviar Black to use as a Steam / Gaming drive, I previously had Steam installed on a 1.5tb Caviar Green but want something faster in my new box (I have 200+ games on Steam on top of the other games I've bought / downloaded, and the mods for said Steam games, so I need the space) I was just wondering, is it worth shelling out the ~$200usd for the Raptor, or should I be fine with a higher capacity Caviar Black or RE? I'd rather use Western Digital, since I've had nothing but good luck from them in the 10+ years I've been building computers but I'm open to suggestions, and 1tb of SSD is a wee bit out of my budget atm (the raptor is pushing it, that's almost half a paycheck) Share this post Link to post Share on other sites More sharing options...
ClayMeow Posted May 5, 2014 Posted May 5, 2014 I would just go with a 3TB 7200RPM drive. Steam allows you to install on multiple drives, so if you really want you can install your most-played games on your SSD, but really it'd only matter for load times and not much else. Share this post Link to post Share on other sites More sharing options...
ir_cow Posted May 5, 2014 Posted May 5, 2014 raptors aren't really fast anymore . these 3tb drives are faster in everyway or or $200 you can get a 400gb ssd . Share this post Link to post Share on other sites More sharing options...
Waco Posted May 5, 2014 Posted May 5, 2014 raptors aren't really fast anymore . these 3tb drives are faster in everyway or or $200 you can get a 400gb ssd .Velociraptors, even the older ones, are noticeably faster than regular 7200 RPM drives. You just can't make up for the seek time benefits of a 10K RPM drive. Share this post Link to post Share on other sites More sharing options...
ir_cow Posted May 5, 2014 Posted May 5, 2014 density does those 3Tb drives have higher read and.write . maybe not seek time but cheaper and have more space. Share this post Link to post Share on other sites More sharing options...
Waco Posted May 5, 2014 Posted May 5, 2014 density does those 3Tb drives have higher read and.write . maybe not seek time but cheaper and have more space.Sustained speeds mean nearly nothing for game loading times. Share this post Link to post Share on other sites More sharing options...
DanTheGamer11 Posted May 5, 2014 Posted May 5, 2014 Depends on whether you're willing to spend more for a bit less If not a 2/3 TB Blue/Black will do you well, already an nice boost over the 5400rpm And it will be less noisy than the 10k drive Share this post Link to post Share on other sites More sharing options...
ClayMeow Posted May 5, 2014 Posted May 5, 2014 density does those 3Tb drives have higher read and.write . maybe not seek time but cheaper and have more space.Sustained speeds mean nearly nothing for game loading times. That's the thing, the only real benefit is load times. I used to have Raptors in Raid-0 and some games I wouldn't even have time to read the load-screen tips! But other than that, there's really no point to spend the extra money (from a gaming perspective). A 7200RPM drive will still provide quicker load times than consoles have to suffer through. If he wants all (or nearly all) his Steam games installed at once, a mere 1TB is not going to last very long (I'm just around 940GB with only half my games installed). Granted he has a much smaller Steam library than myself, but why limit himself? Share this post Link to post Share on other sites More sharing options...
Waco Posted May 5, 2014 Posted May 5, 2014 Oh I'm not arguing against a larger drive - just that the increased sustained rates over a 10k RPM drive don't usually translate to better loading times. The best solution (IMO) is a bigass drive with a cheap SSD in front of it as a cache. Share this post Link to post Share on other sites More sharing options...
ClayMeow Posted May 5, 2014 Posted May 5, 2014 Oh I'm not arguing against a larger drive - just that the increased sustained rates over a 10k RPM drive don't usually translate to better loading times. The best solution (IMO) is a bigass drive with a cheap SSD in front of it as a cache. Agreed Share this post Link to post Share on other sites More sharing options...
DexRain Posted May 5, 2014 Posted May 5, 2014 Oh I'm not arguing against a larger drive - just that the increased sustained rates over a 10k RPM drive don't usually translate to better loading times. The best solution (IMO) is a bigass drive with a cheap SSD in front of it as a cache. Agreed How does one go about doing this? (a link to a guide or anything would be awesome) I don't really know any sort of fancy hard drive tricks myself, seems to me there isn't going to be a huge difference between the 10.k and 7200 drives but either of them will be a big boost over the 5400 drive it's on now. Share this post Link to post Share on other sites More sharing options...
wevsspot Posted May 5, 2014 Posted May 5, 2014 Dex - is the rig you're upgrading the one in your sig? I ask as your answer will directly affect your question about SSD caching. Share this post Link to post Share on other sites More sharing options...
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