Buying New Internal Hard Drive

WindowsAider · 10 Oct 2012

Im having trouble deciding what to buy.

First off, i don't do that many updates PC wise, so this should be able to last me awhile (the hard drive)
Second, i need around 500gb space, anything higher would probably be a waste.
Third, I am using this computer for searching the web, Microsoft doc/excel/those kinds of thing, some steam games.

So what kind of hard drive should i get? Green? Those 7200 ones? What type of cache?
My budget is a maximum of around 100$ (Although i would prefer to buy one between 50-80$)

Your input is greatly appreciated, thanks alot!

Edit: All of the 500gb 7200 RPM drives i see are 16 MB cache, is 16 MB cache bad? How much worse is it then 32 MB or 64 MB cache.

ignatzatsonic · 10 Oct 2012

I'd get a 7200 RPM drive if Windows will be on it, as I assume it will be in your case.

Samsung, Western Digital, and Seagate all make decent 7200 RPM drives. They will all likely have 32 MB or 64 MB of cache. It's not a big deal---not as important as the overall speed of the drive.

Nothing wrong with green drives, but they are typically 5400 rpm and somewhat slower. That might not bother you? Probably wouldn't save you much at the 500 or 750 GB size.

Personally, I'd go with either Samsung or Western Digital, but the fact is you can have bad luck with any brand, so consider things like cost and the seller's return policy if you have problems.

I assume you have a relatively modern PC with SATA connectors. If that isn't true, you would need to buy the older technology and those drives might be getting hard to find.

WindowsAider · 10 Oct 2012

ignatzatsonic said:

I'd get a 7200 RPM drive if Windows will be on it, as I assume it will be in your case.

Samsung, Western Digital, and Seagate all make decent 7200 RPM drives. They will all likely have 32 MB or 64 MB of cache. It's not a big deal---not as important as the overall speed of the drive.

Nothing wrong with green drives, but they are typically 5400 rpm and somewhat slower. That might not bother you? Probably wouldn't save you much at the 500 or 750 GB size.

Personally, I'd go with either Samsung or Western Digital, but the fact is you can have bad luck with any brand, so consider things like cost and the seller's return policy if you have problems.

I assume you have a relatively modern PC with SATA connectors. If that isn't true, you would need to buy the older technology and those drives might be getting hard to find.

Yea i have SATA connectors. I heard that Green drives last longer, is this true? And is the difference between 16 MB and 32 MB cache alot?

AddRAM · 10 Oct 2012

16 MBs is a difference, get 32 MBs. Seagate or WD. I don`t recommend Samsung.

ignatzatsonic · 10 Oct 2012

WindowsAider said:

Yea i have SATA connectors. I heard that Green drives last longer, is this true? And is the difference between 16 MB and 32 MB cache alot?

I've never seen evidence that green drives last longer.

No, 16 MB cache versus 32 MB cache won't make "alot" of difference. Some yes, but it's not as important as RPM or the overall performance of the drive. I'd make the decision based on other factors.

A green drive might save you 2 or 3 dollars a year in electricity costs (4 or 5 watts versus 6 or 8 for a non-green drive).

RogerR · 10 Oct 2012

Just to add that for surfing and typical MS Office the finer points of hard drive seek time and cache likely won't be noticeable. Your boot time might be a couple of seconds longer, but unless you are operating on monster Access databases, the performance otherwise isn't worth losing sleep over.