Top 10 hard drives

Typical requirements when selecting a drive for file storage - a good hard disk should be capacious, inexpensive, cold and quiet. In this sense, all models from the Toshiba E300 line are worthy of attention, and we specifically recommend the HDWA130UZSVA because of the increased spindle speed (compared to its less spacious “relatives”). These discs are optimized for efficient power consumption, so potential buyers need to be prepared for their habit of “falling asleep” after a short idle time. It is clear that it is not the best idea to use such a hard drive for a computer as a main / game player, but they don’t wait for a couple of seconds before the movie starts. The manufacturer’s website talks about some special technologies aimed at reducing noise while the E300 drives are running. And indeed, you can hear HDWA130UZSVA only in moments of promotion.

Productive, roomy and reliable model of the drive from the Black line, recommended for use in powerful gaming PCs and workstations with high speed. A good choice for organizing a system disk. The two-byte drive has no problems with large-volume boot partitions that may occur with larger devices. Application for the organization of RAID-arrays, as additional disks, as well as storage systems NAS is impractical.Key features: · Form factor - 3.5 "; · Rotation speed, rpm - 7200; · Read and write speed, MB / s - 164; · Cache memory size, MB - 64; · Power consumed in standby and read / write modes, W - 1.3 and 9.5, respectively.

The relatively high cost of hybrid drives makes them unattractive for most usage scenarios, but there are cases where the choice of SSHD is fully justified. For example, if you need a sufficiently capacious and fast hard drive for a computer, and there is only one footprint in the system unit. In fact, the recommended model is the usual Barracuda with a spindle speed of 7200 revolutions per minute and double cache (64 MB of DRAM in combination with 8 GB of MLC NAND memory). It is thanks to the second component that the virtual acceleration of the writing process occurs, which is unattainable for classic hard drives. Especially with small block sizes. In addition, interesting adaptive algorithms work in the ST1000DX002 solid-state cache controller, which can drastically reduce load times for frequently used files. Only, in contrast to the full-fledged SSD, their total number of the hybrid disk is significantly less.

The drive is a record capacity of 6 TB from the RED line for long-term operation under constant loads. The drives are designed to create high-capacity network storage for the home and a small office using any NAS system. Can be used as an additional drive in a desktop PC or for organizing a RAID array. The speed and reliability of the RED range is very high due to an improved two-plane balancing system.The firmware of the controller is adapted to work without stopping the motor and parking the heads in the 24-hour readiness mode. Key features: · Form factor - 3.5 "; · Read and write speed, Mb / s - 175; · Buffer volume, MB - 64; · Power consumed in the state of rest and in read / write modes, W - 3 , 4 and 5.3 respectively.

A capacious and productive representative of the Travelstar family. The drive is made in the form factor of 2.5 inches and is designed for mobile devices of wide application. The main disadvantage of this model is its size. Although the thickness of 9.5 mm is customary for such devices, it will not allow installing this smart terabyte hard drive into an ultra-thin laptop. All other indicators at the level of the best in its class. Of course, traditional drives cannot compete with solid-state access speeds, but so far their cost is noticeably lower, and for most users this is enough. Main characteristics: · Rotation speed, rpm - 7200; · Sequential read and write speed, Mb / s - 129; · The amount of cache memory, MB - 32; · Power consumed in standby / exchange mode, W - 0.8 / 2.1.

Continues ranking of the best hard drives for laptops Seagate ST1000LX015. The undoubted advantage of laptops with optical drive is the ability to install an OptiBay adapter and upgrade according to the scheme: the operating system and programs - on a fast SSD, everything else - on a capacious HDD. If an additional footprint cannot be found, the use of a hybrid disk may be an acceptable alternative, and we recommend SSHD FireCuda ST1000LX015 as a candidate for this “position”. First, the 8 GB NAND-flash cache and the tricky algorithms of its controller will provide an accelerated launch of Windows and a couple of frequently used applications. Secondly, the volume of such a drive is quite sufficient for storing a mass of useful and necessary things. Note that if a laptop serves you for a wide range of tasks, you will not get much speed increase.

The representative of the third generation of hybrid discs from Seagate. The model has the brand name "Laptop Thin HDD" and indeed, the thickness of a 500-gigabyte drive is only 7 mm. Given the high speed of rotation of the magnetic plate, first of all it will be of interest to owners of ultra-thin devices who want to speed up their laptops in a limited budget. The drive supports Seagate SmartAlign technology, which allows you to use new formatting methods without the use of additional software. Main characteristics: · Rotation speed, rpm - 7200; · Sequential exchange rate, MB / s - 135; · The amount of flash memory, GB - 8; · Power consumed at rest / in exchange modes, W - 0.9 / 2.7.