Finding the Best Internal Hard Drive For Gaming is a difficult process. By making a simple upgrade, did you know you can significantly cut down your load times on a gaming PC? We are talking about saving 15-30 seconds your average PC takes to process the command and respond from every startup to every Alt-Tab.
In high-end games like Counter Strike Global Offensive, those seconds can save you hours if you add the opening time it takes over its lifetime. If your PC takes too much time to load programs and games, kick it by upgrading its old hard drive to experience real-time gaming action.
People ask this question generally as why do they need a hard drive upgrade? The first reason is that your PC has limited storage space, and when it runs out of storage, you might have to delete the old games to install new ones. The gaming answer would be that hard disk speed plays an important role in loading games up and boot times.
An SSD is very important for gaming enthusiasts as it makes a marginal difference in frames per second (FPS) for most games. An SSD is an alternative to a hard drive, which helps decrease the load times. Therefore, until you upgrade to a hard drive (or SSD), it is very difficult to estimate the time it wastes on loading screens and programs. It is very important to note that having multiple hard drives is always recommended for both the quality and security of gaming.
Top 5 Best Hard Drive For Gaming
After researching for a long hour and review different products we have finalized the list of Top 5 Best Internal Hard Drive For Gaming.
- SAMSUNG SSD 860 EVO 1TB
- SEAGATE FIRECUDA 2TB SOLID STATE
- BARRACUDA SEAGATE 2TB INTERNAL HARD DRIVE
- SEAGATE FIRECUDA 1TB SOLID STATE
- WESTERN DIGITAL 2TB WD BLACK
| Image | Name | Price |
|---|---|---|
 | SAMSUNG SSD 860 EVO 1TB | Check price |
 | SEAGATE FIRECUDA 2TB SOLID STATE | Check price |
 | SEAGATE BARRACUDA 2TB INTERNAL HARD DRIVE | Check price |
 | SEAGATE FIRECUDA 1TB SOLID STATE | Check price |
 | WESTERN DIGITAL 2TB WD BLACK | Check price |
SAMSUNG SSD 860 EVO 1TB
If you don’t have an M2 slot on PC or you need something more budget-friendly, the Samsung SSD 860 EVO 1TB will provide you with the best performance and will fit in all standard motherboards available in the market.
Samsung, once again, has taken SSD technology seriously. It is now offering a premier line of SSDs (solid-state drives) as well. If you get away from an M2 slot, you might be confined to SATA speeds. However, SATA speeds are more than enough to provide the space and speed a gaming enthusiast needs. The most recent champion of the Samsung SSD production line is the 860 EVO Pro.
The difference between the hard drive and SSD can be felt immediately when you are playing storage intensive games like Cyberpunk 2077 or booting up your operating system. It is very easy for a regular SSD to buff the speed of everything your computer is doing.
It has a clicking speed of 560mbs, which allows it to be super quick at operations. This boots the OS in less than 10 seconds and loads the game REALLY fast. In simple words, this SSD is reliable, quick, and improves your gaming quality a lot.
Durability is a huge factor in recommending this SSD. The Samsung EVO 860 will last quite a while if maintained well since it comes with a 5-year limited warranty. You know you have made a pretty good investment having a warrantee for half a decade!
SAMSUNG SSD 860 EVO 1TB Features
- Brand Samsung
- Series 860 EVO
- Item Weight 1.8 ounces
- Product Dimensions 3.94 x 2.76 x 0.27 inches
- Flash Memory Size 1000
- Hard Drive Interface SATA 6 GB/s
- Hard Drive Rotational Speed 550 MB
- Manufacturer Samsung Electronics DAV
- ASIN B078DPCY3T
- Date First Available January 22, 2018
SEAGATE FIRECUDA 2TB SOLID STATE
If your budget does not allow you to go with an SSD and HHD separately, you have to check out the combination SSHD from Seagate. Seagate has been one of the top and premium manufacturers of HDDs and other storage solutions for the past decade.
The purpose on which Seagate created the FireCuda model was to focus on budget-minded gamers. Using an 8GB NAND Flash memory portion, this SSHD has a speed five times faster than a regular HDD. However, by providing such a high speed, it still does not sacrifice its space for the trade-off.
The loading time is increased drastically as information is transferred to the Flash memory. It means it would take less time for you to explore your favorite games and download them. What makes this drive different from others is the large capacity of the FireCuda series.
Also, performing faster than a slow 7200 RPM drive, this SSHD can hold up to more than 80- 25GB games. SSD can cost you a fortune for a little extra space. However, SSHD is the perfect comprise in such situations. One of the downsides to both SSHDs and HDD in consoles is that they are more likely to break if moved too often. So a traditional SSD might be a better and safer option for a console.
SEAGATE FIRECUDA 2TB SOLID STATE Features
- Brand Seagate
- Series FireCuda
- Item model number ST2000LXZ01/LX001
- Hardware Platform PC
- Item Weight 3.39 ounces
- Product Dimensions 3.95 x 2.75 x 0.28 inches
- Flash Memory Size 256
- Hard Drive Interface Serial ATA
- Hard Drive Rotational Speed 5400 RPM
- Manufacturer Seagate Bare Drives
- ASIN B07H2F3741
- Date First Available September 10, 2018
SEAGATE BARRACUDA 2TB INTERNAL HARD DRIVE
If you are not going with the Western Digital drives for #1, the Seagate drives have almost all similar characteristics at a more economical price. Like Western Digital, Seagate also produces some of the best and well known traditional HDDs.
The only feature which makes this HDD stand out from the pack, though, is the unlimited variety in capacity options. Any hard drive above 4TB is almost unimaginable for a regular gaming enthusiast. However, for those who do heavy video projects, the Barracuda is the best option available at the time.
You will probably never go for a 12TB hard drive up in the next decade just for gaming. However, if you are a media enthusiast, that’s quite possible. Seagate offers a 3-year warranty for Barracuda 2TB, which is pretty generous for a traditional HDD.
RAID halves the amount of space you have but provides the most effective security system for your data. That is the reason large-scale HDDs are considered the best options for RAID.
For advanced storage space and performance, we recommend picking up a larger storage HDD and then combining it with an additional SSD for your operating system and some speedy quick load times. The 2TB Barracuda would be more than enough to give you a gaming experience like never before.
SEAGATE BARRACUDA 2TB INTERNAL HARD DRIVE Features
- Brand Seagate
- Series Barracuda
- Item model number ST2000DM008
- Hardware Platform PC
- Item Weight 14.7 ounces
- Product Dimensions 5.79 x 4 x 0.79 inches
- Flash Memory Size 2
- Hard Drive Interface Serial ATA
- Hard Drive Rotational Speed 7200 RPM
- Manufacturer Seagate Bare Drives
- ASIN B07H2RR55Q
- Date First Available September 3, 2018
SEAGATE FIRECUDA 1TB SOLID STATE
To deliver the best performance and high storage memory, Seagate Firecuda combines both solid-state drive (SSD) and hard disk drive (HDD) technologies forming the best duo.
It possesses flash enhanced memory cells, which provides blazing speed and system boot times and loading of programs. With a high capacity of 4TB, Seagate Firecuda allows you to experience the blazing fast speed of an SSD and increased storage space of HDDs of top tiers with a friendly budget. It includes adaptive memory technologies and multi-tier caching for ultra-fast loading of games, programs, and OS.
It helps you customize your build because of its two different sizes of 3.5 and 2.5 inches for better and faster storage. Built with top tier gaming rigs, the Seagate Firecuda lowers the power consumption efficiently without sacrificing its performance.
An important feature it offers is an optional Seagate rescue data recovery plan, which you can buy. The purpose of this plan is to protect your games, programs, and files from corruption due to unauthorized access or hardware failure.
However, it still does not compete with the performance stats of SSD devices, which are widely considered the new GO TO storage solution for gamers. The only reason for keeping these hard drives in the market is their economical price and value for money.
SEAGATE FIRECUDA 1TB SOLID STATE Features
- Brand Seagate
- Item model number ST1000LXZ15/LX015
- Hardware Platform Laptop, PC
- Item Weight 3.39 ounces
- Product Dimensions 3.95 x 2.75 x 0.28 inches
- Flash Memory Size 1 TB
- Hard Drive Interface Serial ATA
- Hard Drive Rotational Speed 5400 RPM
- Manufacturer Seagate Bare Drives
- ASIN B07H2549QS
WESTERN DIGITAL 2TB WD BLACK
Western Digital 2TB is the perfect storage solution for any gaming enthusiast coming with an 8TB of storage to save all your games without deleting the old ones. It also allows you to store large multimedia files like photos, videos, music, and programs because with a WD Black. You come back stronger on gaming.
It manages to deliver high-speed transfer and read rates of your files with impressive cache sizes of up to 256 MB of DRAM on our high capacity models. This boosts up the performance of the PC and makes it quick over commands.
It offers more reliability than standard HDDs by tracking operations more accurately. To make it fit for every use, the WD Black goes through aggressive internal testing over a longer period of timed Black drive comes in capacities up to 8TB, allowing you to continue downloading your favorite games without deleting or compromising the previous ones.
The WD Dashboard app helps you customize its performance points for gaming. It enables the dedicated game mode to bring your SSD in top condition to perform like a beast during gameplay. It is also optimized for 4K production, so it works in the same powerful manner as it plays. These bad boys are unappreciated workhorses, and the amount of PCs still equipped with them as secondary storage is shocking.
WESTERN DIGITAL 2TB WD BLACK Features
- Brand Western Digital
- Series Black
- Item model number WD2003FZEX
- Item Weight 1.65 pounds
- Product Dimensions 5.8 x 4 x 1 inches
- Computer Memory Type DDR3 SDRAM
- Flash Memory Size 2 TB
- Hard Drive Rotational Speed 7200 RPM
- Manufacturer Western Digital
- ASIN B00FJRS628
- Is Discontinued by Manufacturer No
BUYERS GUIDE:
M.2. SLOT:
You can go with M.2 slot, which is what most manufacturers are doing at the moment. If you can, by all means, go for M.2. But make sure you have a heatsink to control the heat generated by these components to keep it fast and efficient.
SIZE:
Get at least a 500GB drive, but if you can afford it, by all means, go for a larger drive.
WARRANTY:
Finally, you should consider what kind of security you’re getting and whether or not that covers your data somehow.
VALUE FOR MONEY:
And last but not least, the prices for good, high-quality SSDs have gone down quite a bit in the past couple of years. There is no better time to upgrade to an SSD than now.
Frequently Asked Question
What is the Best Internal Hard Drive for Gaming?
- Samsung SSD 860 Evo 1TB Internal Hard Disk
- Seagate Firecuda 2TB Solid State
- Barracuda Seagate 2TB Internal Hard Drive
- Seagate Firecuda 1TB Solid State For Gaming
- Western Digital 2TB Wd Black
Which is Better, HDD, or SSD?
When it comes to performance and loading time, the SSD wins the league, While HDD is less expensive and has a longer lifespan.
Is HDD Suitable For Gaming?
Yes, of course, an HDD has enough space to store games. Also, it can easily support the graphics of your game. Therefore, you shouldn’t worry.