Getting new Hard Drive

[Rusty_S85]

Im looking at getting a new hard drive. How ever I haven't opened my Asus G11 case up yet. I want to do the hard drive install when I open the case up.

Currently I have a friend that is urging me to go with the Seagate Firecuda 2TB hard drive and wanted to ask if anyone on here ever used this harddrive before?

I also wanted to ask if anyone ever installed this harddrive before on an Asus G11?

I never did anything to a computer, Ive always made due with what I had till it was time to get a whole new pc. So this will be the first time I will be messing with the innards of a computer. So I don't know if this drive will plug in and work with this computer. If anyone can give some advice I would greatly appreciate it.

The other hard drive I am looking at is the Seagate Ironwolf 8TB hard drive but its just a plain hard drive not a hybrid SSHD like the Firecuda.

[xeromist]

I personally haven't found an SSHD to be that useful over a standard hard drive. The cache is tiny so if you are typically accessing a lot of different things it will not be able to cache them all and most things end up getting pulled from the hard drive anyway. If most of the stuff is archival and you are accessing a few things constantly then you might see a benefit.

Basically, I don't think it hurts but I wouldn't spend extra on one over a plain drive.

[Rusty_S85]

xeromist wrote:
I personally haven't found an SSHD to be that useful over a standard hard drive. The cache is tiny so if you are typically accessing a lot of different things it will not be able to cache them all and most things end up getting pulled from the hard drive anyway. If most of the stuff is archival and you are accessing a few things constantly then you might see a benefit.

Basically, I don't think it hurts but I wouldn't spend extra on one over a plain drive.

I went ahead and ordered the Firecuda 2TB and a SATA III cable. Don't need a power cable as I opened my case it has from Asus a daisy chain power cable for up to 3 or 4 hard drives.

For me this hard drive is for games only. I have an external hard drive 2TB I use for storing videos, photos, documents, etc to protect against loss. The partitioned hard drive my tower came with that 780GB will be emptied out and use for non Steam games such as WoWs and the upcoming T:H&G game I am looking forward to. Aside from that my steam library and all current 100+ games will be installed on this new 2TB hard drive. That's why I went with the Firecuda as I picked it up from Amazon for $97.02 and if I went with the Barracuda with the 256mb Cache that was 8TB that would have set me back $250. The more I thought about it I couldn't justify spending that much money as I feel 2TB should be big enough for me which in hindsight it probably wont be. But I could cancel my amazon order as it hasn't shipped yet and go with a 4TB Barracuda hard drive which has 128mb cache but that would cost me $168.24 just for that drive.

I guess I will cross that bridge when I get to it. If this drive isn't big enough guess it will just be a learning experience.

[alfaniterex]

Rusty_S85 wrote:
Im looking at getting a new hard drive. How ever I haven't opened my Asus G11 case up yet. I want to do the hard drive install when I open the case up.

Currently I have a friend that is urging me to go with the Seagate Firecuda 2TB hard drive and wanted to ask if anyone on here ever used this harddrive before?

I also wanted to ask if anyone ever installed this harddrive before on an Asus G11?

I never did anything to a computer, Ive always made due with what I had till it was time to get a whole new pc. So this will be the first time I will be messing with the innards of a computer. So I don't know if this drive will plug in and work with this computer. If anyone can give some advice I would greatly appreciate it.

The other hard drive I am looking at is the Seagate Ironwolf 8TB hard drive but its just a plain hard drive not a hybrid SSHD like the Firecuda.

Choose SSD from Samsung. I would recommend!

[Rusty_S85]

alfaniterex wrote:
Choose SSD from Samsung. I would recommend!

I might still do that seeing as I have the capability of adding another harddrive ontop of the one I am adding now. Was thinking of doing a SSD.

Right now I am second guessing my amazon order wondering if the 2TB is going to be big enough for me. I mainly went with the Firecuda because lots of gamers I know said they are good for a gaming drive. But I also have over 100 games on steam that I want to install all of them and keep them installed. As well as a few new games I will be getting such as the new Doom, Fallout 76, the new Wolfenstein, etc. So more I think more I and starting to think maybe I should spend more money and get a bigger hard drive and just forget the 2TB Firecuda and cancel that order before it goes through.

[Vlada011]

It's bad because WD my favorite HDD brand not produce WD Black 2TB 2.5".

You can check Seagate ST2000LX001 2TB with 64MB Cache, WD Blue 2TB is 128MB Cache.
You need to check there is a two size of 2.5" Mobile HDD. Maybe bigger will not fit inside laptop.

[xeromist]

If you have a bad or expensive internet connection at home then it might be worth getting a bigger drive so that everything can always be installed. But keep in mind that when you have a lot of games installed you will also have a lot of updates to install so if this is a concern you should disable automatic updates.

If you have a good internet connection then I would question whether you really need to have everything installed all at once. With a fast connection even large games are only an hour away. My laptop only has a 1TB game drive and I have survived for years by uninstalling games I have completed. It turns out I don't have time to replay old titles and can't even keep up with my new purchases. It's enough space to keep all of my multi-player games installed and the single-player games I'm actually still playing which turns out to be all I've really needed. My desktop has more space and more games installed but I don't play any more of them than I play on my laptop. I just don't bother uninstalling because I haven't run out of space yet.

[Rusty_S85]

xeromist wrote:
If you have a bad or expensive internet connection at home then it might be worth getting a bigger drive so that everything can always be installed. But keep in mind that when you have a lot of games installed you will also have a lot of updates to install so if this is a concern you should disable automatic updates.

If you have a good internet connection then I would question whether you really need to have everything installed all at once. With a fast connection even large games are only an hour away. My laptop only has a 1TB game drive and I have survived for years by uninstalling games I have completed. It turns out I don't have time to replay old titles and can't even keep up with my new purchases. It's enough space to keep all of my multi-player games installed and the single-player games I'm actually still playing which turns out to be all I've really needed. My desktop has more space and more games installed but I don't play any more of them than I play on my laptop. I just don't bother uninstalling because I haven't run out of space yet.

I get what you are saying. I went through steam and it looks like I will only be installing a total of 60 games. 45 of them I have installed already. Most of my games are older games that I no longer play anymore so there is no real need to keep them installed. Could always download them again when I wanted to play them as they are small games due to their age. I just want to get ready because for me the new games that I am looking forward to playing is the new Doom game, the new Wolfenstein game, and Fallout 76. There are a few others I am looking forward to but going to wait till there is more than a teaser trailer available. My internet connection isn't the best but it isn't horrible. Ive let my computer on through the night and let steam download a new game and have it ready by the next day to play. So that's not too big of a issue for me. Now once I move I don't know what my internet will be like. Only a few internet providers and I don't know if they have high speed internet which is what I want so I can finally download larger games in a more reasonable amount of time.

I went ahead and ordered the 2TB Firecuda last night and a 18" SATA III cable. Amazon gave me free one day shipping so I will have it here today. After work I will swing by the local officedepot or bestbuy and pick up a few cans of the air duster to clean the inside of my case out and install the new drive. Hope the new drive comes with screws to attach it to the cage. If not I might have to let it just lay in the tray till I get some screws.

[Rob_W_]

I tend to run my games off ssd, much faster! And use hdd’s For bulk storage.
You can load in your games from hdd to ssd for playing, much faster load times in games.*

[xeromist]

Rob W. wrote:
I tend to run my games off ssd, much faster! And use hdd’s For bulk storage.
You can load in your games from hdd to ssd for playing, much faster load times in games.*

I've used Steam Mover for this. Works well when you have a small SSD.