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.
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 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 offer 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 the 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, and 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 a 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 |
Buy WD Black Desktop Hard Drive
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 a 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 |
Buy Seagate BarraCuda Pro Hard Drive
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 is 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 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
Below 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, and 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 most 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 |
Buy Seagate BarraCuda Hard Drive
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Final Words
In the end, I would only like to say that these above-mentioned internal mechanical hard drives are the 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 by leaving a comment below.
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I have both Seagate firecuda 1TB and WD blue WD10EZEX 1TB, but there is no difference in read and write, Crystal DiskMark 8 says they both run at about 160MBPS, do I get defective firecuda?
Try real word benchmark by transferring 5GB data (split into 1GB or 2GB) from external hard drive to the test drive.
Ok, I’ll try that, but why it has to be from external hard drive? do you mean external hard drive connected through USB 3 or different drive (HDD/SSD/NVMe)?
Yes, USB 3.0 for external but if you have an internal SSD then use that for testing.
Hi, I’ve tried to compare in real world, results are:
WD Blue, From/read about 150 MB/s, To/write +/- 120 MB/s, date of manufactured 14 sept 2014
Seagate Firecuda, From/read 180 MB/s, To/write +/- 140 MB/s, date of manufactured 17 jan 2020, far below SATA SSD, very disappointing
Target/source is NVMe SSD read/write 2400/1800, file transfered 50 GB containing many films @1-1.5GB
I think it is normal.
But you said it’s much faster than traditional hdd and a bit slower than ssd, it’ the other way around, slightly faster than hdd, but way much slower than even cheap ssd, perhaps a 10000RPM hdd is faster than this so called sshd
Well, in some conditions you can expect up to 200 MB/s read/write but yes it cannot match the SSD level performance.