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- Jan 31, 2020 Best Budget Internal Hard Drives for Desktop PC. Here are the top internal hard drives for use in normal PC or in the budget to mid-range gaming PCs. WD Blue 1TB Desktop Hard Drive. Western Digital Blue Desktop Hard Drives are one of the most popular and best-selling hard drives in the market right now.
- The storage solution you choose will depend on your needs. Generally, replacing your existing hard drive with an internal hard drive or solid state drive (SSD) can provide additional built-in storage at top speeds, while a stand-alone hard drive or external SSD gives you greater flexibility and enables you to expand storage capacity at any time, as you need it, quickly and easily.
- HGST: The HGST brand for hard drives is a subsidiary of the Western Digital (WD) community which is also known for delivering high-range hard drives for computer systems. HGST is committed to offering highly innovative, mobile, high-value datacenter, personal, as well as consumer electronic data storage solutions to the individuals of the world.
For gaming, you need a fast processor, a huge amount of RAM, powerful graphics and a fast hard drive. A normal hard drive can be a slight bottleneck in gaming especially when gaming at higher resolutions. Your games will load slower and you may experience some slow loading of textures issues in between the gameplay if you have a really slow hard drive installed in your gaming PC.
Seagate BarraCuda 4TB Internal Hard Drive HDD – 3.5 Inch Sata 6 Gb/s 5400 RPM 256MB Cache For Computer Desktop PC – Frustration Free Packaging ST4000DMZ04/DM004 4.7 out of 5 stars 51,556 $79.99 $ 79. 99 $94.99 $94.99. These are the best external hard drives - both HDDs and SSDs - for your PC, Mac, Xbox or PlayStation. (Image credit: Samsung) When it comes to the best external hard drives, there isn't strictly a one-size-fits-all solution thanks to there being so many varied options out there.
If you want the fastest storage device for gaming and performance then SSD is the way to go. But solid state drives are very expensive and have a limited lifespan. For a price of 250GB SSD, you can get a 2TB Hard Drive which I think is a way better deal. You may use a 250GB SSD for installing your operating system but getting a higher capacity SSD (1GB or more) for storing and installing your games can be a very costly affair. However, there are some fast internal hard drives available in the market for gaming that offers good performance in gaming and are much cheaper compared to solid state drives. So here in this post, I am going to list down the best gaming hard drives for use in high performance/gaming PCs and compatible gaming consoles. You can use the below mentioned internal hard drives in combination with an SSD also. You can install your Windows OS on SSD and for storing games and other data you can use the fast internal hard drives mentioned below.
Must Read:Best Internal Hard Drives for Desktop PCs & Servers
Best Gaming Hard Drives for Top Performance
Here are best 3.5-inches gaming hard drives for use in top gaming builds and in high-performance PCs where you require both large storage and fast speed.
WD Black Desktop Hard Drive
WD Black Hard Drives are designed for use in gaming PCs and high-performance computers. They may not be as fast as the SSDs but they are definitely faster than the typical internal hard drives. These WD Black hard drives come with a dual-core processor and higher cache memory to deliver maximum performance in games and other applications.
The drive comes in capacities of 1TB, 2TB, 3TB, 4TB, 5TB, 6TB and has got spindle speed of 7200 RPM. 2TB and 3TB variants come with 64MB cache while the higher capacity drives come with whopping 128MB cache memory. These drives may not bit be as silent as WD Blue or WD Greens but they are not too loud either. However, they are definitely faster and can speed up your computer performance. So, if you are an enthusiast and looking for big capacity and fast internal hard drive for your gaming PC or for professional work then you should definitely go for it. Highly Recommended by me.
WD Black Hard Drive Specifications | |
Storage Capacity | 1TB, 2TB, 3TB, 4TB, 5TB, 6TB |
Spindle Speed | 7200 RPM |
Cache | 64MB / 128MB |
Interface | SATA III 6Gb/s |
Warranty | 5 years |
Seagate BarraCuda Pro Hard Drive
From Seagate, we have got BarraCuda Pro which is also a high-performance hard drive for gaming, creative pro applications and for use in high-performance desktops. This is a 7200 RPM hard drive and is available in 2 TB, 4 TB, 6 TB, 8 TB, 10 TB, 12 TB capacities.
These hard drives come with Multi-Tier Caching Technology (MTC) to speed up the performance in demanding applications and games. 2TB and 4TB variants have got 128MB cache while the higher models are equipped with 256MB cache. These drives are as fast as the WD Black drives, deliver equally good performance and are available in large capacities. Also, these drives are quite affordable and offer the best price to performance ratio. So if you are looking for a fast drive with lots of storage space then you should definitely go with this one.
Seagate BarraCuda Pro Specifications | |
Storage Capacity | 2 TB, 4 TB, 6 TB, 8 TB, 10 TB, 12 TB |
Spindle Speed | 7200 RPM |
Cache | 128MB / 256Mb |
Interface | SATA III 6Gb/s |
Warranty | 5 years |
Seagate FireCuda SSHD
If you are looking for something faster than a mechanical hard drive but cheaper than an SSD then Seagate FireCuda is the answer. This is a Solid State Hybrid Drive (SSHD) that is a mix of both SSD and a mechanical hard drive. It is faster than a traditional hard drive but is slower and cheaper than an SSD. According to Seagate, this SSHD hybrid drive is up to 5x times faster than a typical hard drive but in reality, you can get around doubled performance in read / write speeds compared to a standard hard drive.
This a 7200 RPM hard drive that comes with 64MB of inbuilt cache and is available in 1TB and 2TB storage capacities. FireCuda SSHD hard drives are fast, responsive and are great for gaming, video editing and for high-end professional applications. These drives cost way less than an SSD but you will do get somewhat SSD like performance from these hybrid drives.
Seagate FireCuda SSHD Specifications | |
Storage Capacity | 1TB, 2TB |
Spindle Speed | 7200 RPM |
Cache | 64MB |
Interface | SATA III 6Gb/s |
Warranty | 5 years |
Best Budget Hard Drives for Gaming PC
Here are the best budget hard drives that can be used in budget gaming builds and gaming consoles that include Xbox One and PlayStation.
WD Blue Hard Drive
WD Blue Hard Drives are one of the most popular internal hard drives for use in normal desktop PCs or in budget gaming PCs. These hard drives are available in 500GB, 1TB, 2TB, 3TB, 4TB, 6TB capacity and have got 64MB cache. 500GB and 1TB variants are 7200 RPM hard drives while the higher capacity ones have a spindle speed of 5400 RPM. These hard drives are quite silent especially the 5400 RPM ones and are one of the reliable hard drives in the market today. So, if you are on a tight budget then you should definitely go with the WD Blue Internal PC Hard Drives.
WD Blue Hard Drive Specifications | |
Storage Capacity | 500GB, 1TB, 2TB, 3TB, 4TB, 6TB |
Spindle Speed | 5400 / 7200 RPM |
Cache | 64MB |
Interface | SATA III 6Gb/s |
Warranty | 2 years |
Seagate BarraCuda Hard Drive
Seagate BarraCuda hard drives are also very popular and are known for their reliability and performance. It is the main competitor of the WD Blue hard drive. Seagate BarraCuda HDDs are 7200 RPM hard drives having 32MB / 64MB and 256MB cache. Higher 3TB and 4TB variants come with 256MB cache while others have 64MB cache memory. These drives are a bit noisier in comparison but they are not annoyingly loud. These drives may offer a bit more performance than the WD Blue ones because of their higher 7200 RPM speed for larger capacity drives. I personally have 1TB Seagate Barracuda installed in my gaming PC and it is performing very well in gaming too. So, if you want a good budget internal hard drive from Seagate then this is the best option.
Seagate BarraCuda Hard Drive Specifications | |
Storage Capacity | 4 TB, 3 TB, 2 TB, 1 TB, 500 GB |
Spindle Speed | 7200 RPM |
Cache | 64 / 256 MB |
Interface | SATA III 6Gb/s |
Warranty | 2 years |
Must Read:How to cool down a hard drive in PC
![Internal Internal](https://www.custompcreview.com/wp-content/uploads/2013/11/random-hard-drives-nas-hdd-article-custom-pc-review-1.jpg)
Final Words
In the end, I would only like to say that these above mentioned internal mechanical hard drives are best in the business and will not disappoint you at all. You will get huge storage and the best price/performance ratio on these internal hard drives. If you have got any queries regarding them then you can ask me them by leaving a comment below.
(*This post may contain affiliate links, which means I may receive a small commission if you choose to purchase through links I provide (at no extra cost to you). Thank you for supporting the work I put into this site!)
A hard drive is one of the most important components of your PC. It is the primary storage device of your computer where you store your data and operating system files. Mechanical hard drives are present for a very long time and they are still an inexpensive and widely used storage device even after the evolution of much faster Solid State Drives (SSD).
Best Internal Laptop Hard Drive
A mechanical hard drive provides your tons of storage space at an affordable price and is also very reliable unless you drop it or incur any physical damage. An internal hard drive is generally the preferred primary storage device for any PC. The performance of hard drives has improved quite a bit over the past by increasing the amount of high-speed cache or buffer. Internal hard drives for PC comes in 3.5-inch form factor and here in this post, I am going to list down the best internal hard drives for Desktop PC and for building Network-attached storage (NAS) Server, Enterprise Server and for use in Surveillance Systems. All the below mentioned hard disks come with SATA III 6Gb/s interface for faster operation.
Read also:
Best Budget Internal Hard Drives for Desktop PC
Here are the top internal hard drives for use in normal PC or in the budget to mid-range gaming PCs.
WD Blue 1TB Desktop Hard Drive
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Western Digital Blue Desktop Hard Drives are one of the most popular and best-selling hard drives in the market right now. They are reliable, offer good performance and are quite silent too. Also, the power consumption of these hard drives is moderate. Western Digital Blue Desktop Hard Drives comes in capacities of 500GB, 1TB, 2TB, 3TB, 4TB, and 6TB. The 500GB and 1TB versions come with a spindle speed of 7200 RPM while higher capacity models have got spindle speed of 5400 RPM. With lower RPM speed, performance does take a little toll but you will get larger storage space.
Here we have got a 1TB model of WB Blue hard drive and it comes with 7200 RPM and 64MB cache. This internal hard drive offers a good balance between performance and storage space. So if you are looking for a cheap, fast and high performance internal hard drive for your gaming or normal PC then this hard drive will never let you down. Highly Recommended by me.
WD Blue 1TB Desktop Hard Drive Specifications | |
Storage Capacity | 1TB |
Spindle Speed | 7200 RPM |
Cache | 64MB |
Interface | SATA III 6Gb/s |
Warranty | 2 year |
Seagate BarraCuda 2TB Hard Drive
Seagate is a big name in hard drives and is the main competitor of Western Digital. Here we have Seagate BarraCuda hard drives that come with capacities in 4 TB, 3 TB, 2 TB, 1 TB, 500 GB. The BarraCuda desktop hard drive series from Seagate offers good amount of performance and are quite power efficient too.
These internal hard drives are best suited for home desktops, all-in-one PCs, budget gaming PCs and Entry-level direct-attached storage devices (DAS). Run windows on my mac. The 2TB variant from this BarraCuda series offers great value for your money and it comes with 64MB cache and 7200 RPM Spindle speed. So if you are looking for a fast, high storage, trusted and durable hard drive then you must go for this.
Seagate BarraCuda 2TB Hard Drive Specifications | |
Storage Capacity | 2TB |
Spindle Speed | 7200 RPM |
Cache | 64 MB |
Interface | SATA III 6Gb/s |
Warranty | 2 years |
Seagate FireCuda 2TB SSHD
The FireCuda range from Seagate consists of Solid State Hybrid Drives (SSHD). SSHD is a hard drive that has a small amount of flash storage built-in it for speeding up the hard drive. The majority of the space in an SSHD consists of a mechanical disk and only part of storage i.e. 8GB or so is the flash-based memory. The controller chip decides which data is to be stored on flash memory and which one on the mechanical disk. The most used programs or operating system files are often stored on the flash memory only. It is a hybrid of both HD and SSD and therefore it is called Solid State Hybrid Drive or SSHD.
These SSHD drives are faster than the traditional mechanical hard drives because of the faster flash memory they possess besides cache. In general, they are about 5x or five times faster than the normal mechanical hard drive. Seagate FireCuda 3.5” hard drives are available in two capacities of 1TB and 2TB. Here we have the 2TB variant that comes with 64MB cache and has got a spindle speed of 7200 RPM. This is a very fast hard drive and is suited for anyone building a gaming PC or a high-performance workstation for professional work. FireCuda internal hard drives also come with a much longer warranty compared to the standard internal hard drives. So if you are looking for both high-performance and large storage then FireCuda drives will certainly make you happy.
Seagate FireCuda 2TB SSHD Specifications | |
Storage Capacity | 2TB |
Spindle Speed | 7200 RPM |
Cache | 64 MB |
Interface | SATA III 6Gb/s |
Warranty | 5 year |
Toshiba P300 3TB Hard Drive
Frankly, I am not a fan of Toshiba hard drives but this Toshiba internal hard drive has really impressed me with its performance and price. Toshiba P300 is a high-performance hard drive that comes with 64 MB cache and has got a high spindle speed of 7200 RPM. The drive is available in 500GB, 1TB, 2TB, and 3TB capacities. You can use this internal hard drive in gaming PCs, desktop workstations, all-in-one PCs and for normal desktop PC. This drive is fairly reliable and it supports Native Command Queuing (NCQ), Internal shock detection and ramp-loading technology and Perpendicular Magnetic Recording (PMR) technology.
Toshiba P300 3TB Hard Drive Specifications | |
Storage Capacity | 3TB |
Spindle Speed | 7200 RPM |
Cache | 64 MB |
Interface | SATA III 6Gb/s |
Warranty | 2 year |
Best Internal HDD for NAS, Servers & Surveillance Systems
Here are the best NAS, Enterprise, and Surveillance internal hard drives for home, office, business, and industrial use. These professional hard drives are a bit different from the traditional desktop internal hard drives as they come with totally different firmware and are designed for continuous usage. Some of these drives also come with more robust components for longer life compared to the normal desktop hard drives. You can use the FreeNAS operating system to build a NAS server for home or office using these high-performance NAS internal drives.
WD Red 3TB NAS Hard Disk Drive
WD Red NAS Hard Drives are the hard drives that are designed for use in NAS systems and are optimized for constant read and write operation. These are robust hard drives and are compatible with almost all NAS systems or softwares. You can configure these NAS drives in RAID and build an efficient and powerful NAS server for office, home or business use.
WD Red NAS drives in capacities of 2TB, 3TB, 4TB, 5TB, 6TB, 8TB, 10TB and with 64MB, 128MB, 256MB cache. All of these internal drives have a spindle speed of 5400 RPM. Here we have the 3TB version of the WD Red NAS drive which comes with 64 MB cache. Higher capacity drives i.e. 8TB and 10TB ones comes with 128MB and 256MB cache respectively. These NAS drives are tested in 24×7 conditions for demanding environments. This is a fairly quiet NAS drive but does not expect it to be super silent. Overall it is a high quality and robust NAS drive and it provides the most bang for your bucks.
WD Red 3TB NAS Hard Drive Specifications | |
Storage Capacity | 3TB |
Spindle Speed | 5400 RPM |
Cache | 64 MB |
Interface | SATA III 6Gb/s |
Warranty | 3 year |
Seagate IronWolf 4TB NAS Drive
Here we have NAS disk drive range from Seagate which is Seagate IronWolf. These NAS internal drives are designed to work in 24*7 environments and they come in capacities of 1TB, 2TB, 3TB, 4TB, 6TB, 8TB, and 10TB. Drives with capacities from 1TB to 4TB comes with 64MB cache and 5900 RPM spindle speed while 6TB to 10TB drives have got a higher spindle speed of 7200 RPM and 256MB cache (128MB for 6TB).
If we compare the specs, then these drives are a bit faster than the WD Red NAS drives mentioned above. Seagate IronWolfs are perfect drives for NAS, Desktop RAID, servers and for small businesses. So if you are not into Western Digital and want something a bit faster, then you must go with these NAS drives from Seagate.
Seagate IronWolf 4TB NAS Drive Specifications | |
Storage Capacity | 4TB |
Spindle Speed | 5900 RPM |
Cache | 64 MB |
Interface | SATA III 6Gb/s |
Warranty | 3 year |
WD Gold 6TB Enterprise Class Hard Disk Drive
Here we have WD Gold which is an Enterprise Class Hard Drive for use in enterprise servers, datacenter servers, high-end servers, and heavy-duty storage systems. These are heavy-duty hard drives that are designed to work continuously in 24x7x365 environments. WD Gold Enterprise-Class Drives comes in capacities of 1TB, 2TB, 4TB, 6TB, 8TB, 10TB, 12TB and have got 7200 RPM Spindle Speed. The cache in these drives ranges from 128 MB to 256 MB.
The major features of these Enterprise Class Hard Drives include Vibration Protection, HelioSeal technology for reliability & high storage, RAID-specific, time-limited error recovery (TLER), Dynamic fly height technology. These enterprise-level hard drives have got reliability of 2.5 million hours MTBF. Here we have the 6TB variant of WD Gold Enterprise Hard Drive that comes with 128 MB cache and offers a great balance between high storage and affordable pricing.
WD Gold 6TB Enterprise Hard Drive Specifications | |
Storage Capacity | 6TB |
Spindle Speed | 7200 RPM |
Cache | 128 MB |
Interface | SATA III 6Gb/s |
Warranty | 5 year |
WD Purple Surveillance Hard Drive 4TB
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WD Purple Surveillance Hard Drives are designed for use in DVR, NVR, Video Server, Security System or Video Monitoring Systems. WD Purple Hard Drives are designed to work in Surveillance systems with continuous usage. These WD Purple Surveillance hard drives are built for 24*7 usage and can support up to 64 cameras, and can record videos in high-definition (HD). These Surveillance drives come in capacities of 1TB, 2TB, 3TB, 4TB, 6TB, 8TB, 10TB having spindle speed of 5400 RPM. 8TB variant comes with 128 MB cache, 10TB one with 256MB cache while the rest of the WD Purple drives come with 64MB cache.
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WD Purple Surveillance drives come with AllFrame 4KTM Technology that reduces frame loss, improves video playback and optimizes the drive to work in challenging environments where continuous operation is needed for surveillance. These drives can sustain high temperature and they are built and optimized accordingly. Workload rate supported by these surveillance drives is 180TB/yr and they support TLER & ATA streaming. Here we have the 4TB variant of WB Purple HDD that comes with a spindle speed of 5400 RPM. So if your main purpose is surveillance then you must choose these specialized drives.
WD Purple Surveillance Hard Drive 4TB Specifications | |
Storage Capacity | 4TB |
Spindle Speed | 5400 RPM |
Cache | 64 MB |
Interface | SATA III 6Gb/s |
Warranty | 3 year |
Seagate SkyHawk 6TB Surveillance Hard Drive
Here we have Surveillance Hard Drive from Seagate which is Seagate SkyHawk. This Surveillance Hard Drive comes in capacities of 1TB, 2TB, 3TB, 4TB, 6TB, 8TB and 10TB. Higher capacities versions i.e. 6TB, 8TB, and 10TB variant comes with 256 MB cache and others have 64 MB cache. These drives have got spindle speed of 5900 RPM and are suited for use in Network video recorders (NVR), Embedded surveillance DVRs (SDVR), Hybrid surveillance DVRs, Surveillance DVRs.
Seagate SkyHawk has a maximum Workload rating of 180TB/year and supports up to 64 cameras. The drive is fast enough to record HD videos. Here we have a 6TB variant of Seagate SkyHawk that comes with 256 MB cache. Seagate SkyHawk drives can be a little faster than the WD Purple because of higher cache and slightly faster rotational speed.
Seagate SkyHawk 6TB Surveillance Hard Drive Specifications | |
Storage Capacity | 6TB |
Spindle Speed | 5900 RPM |
Cache | 256 MB |
Interface | SATA III 6Gb/s |
Warranty | 3 year |
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Final Words
Best Pc Hdd Games
In the end, I would like to say that nowadays you can find specialized hard drives for different purposes or use and this can really increase the productivity and performance of your specialized systems. For desktop use, there are desktop hard drives and for servers and surveillance systems different hard drives are available. It is better or advisable to use the proper hard drive designed for a particular system otherwise you may face serious issues with performance. Above I have mentioned all the best internal hard drives for different purposes and if you have got any queries regarding them, then you can ask me your queries by leaving a comment below.