It is not easy to catalog some computer products; this is the case of hard drives, which have always been a cross and a delight for users as they keep our most precious data and unfortunately decide to break in the less opportune moments! Although there are many brands of mechanical hard drives, we will try in this guide to show you the best internal hard drives that we can buy for the PC according to our specific needs .
Even though solid state drives (SSD) and internal M.2 disks are becoming increasingly popular, having a mechanical disk allows you to have a lot of space to save the most voluminous files by spending the right amount and integrating the main memory of the PC (especially if we are on a fixed PC, better to have the coupled HDD + SSD so that we can make up for one of the shortcomings of the other).
READ ALSO: Best external hard drives
1) Hard disk for every day
A mechanical hard disk to be used on any home PC has a good rotation speed (7200 rpm), a fair reading and writing speed and a good durability (attested in 5-6 continuous years, 10 realistic years). Obviously it is not possible to predict the duration or the breaking of a disk because much also depends on the use and quantity of data written during the use of the PC during its life. The best disks for everyday home PCs are as follows:
- Western Digital WD Blue 1 TB (€ 40)
- Seagate BarraCuda 1 TB (€ 38)
- Seagate BarraCuda 2 TB (€ 60)
These hard drives have a good capacity and cost relatively little in the configuration of a new PC, so we can consider them as a second disk to be used for files or for storing ISO images or configuration files of virtual machines.
READ ALSO: More reliable hard drives that last and don't break
2) Hard disk to play or to get maximum speed
Assuming that to play we recommend betting on an SSD or an M.2, mechanical discs with high read and write performance are available on the market, as well as having very high rotational speeds. These discs can be used to save larger games or within game consoles as upgrades to improve performance.
- Toshiba P300 2 TB High-performance (60 €)
- Seagate FireCuda 2 TB (115 Euro)
- Western Digital WD Black 2 TB (€ 125)
Complete your gaming stations or consoles with one of these mechanical hard disks in order to have incredible performances for a disk with this type of technology.
3) Hard disk for video surveillance (PVR)
If we have a video surveillance system for the home or for commercial activity, we cannot focus on the mechanical discs seen so far (and obviously we cannot use SSD or M.2 since they cost to have acceptable capacities).
To record 24 hours a day and not to lose data or drop in performance we will have to focus on models designed specifically for continuous recording, therefore with great resistance and ability to resist blackouts and errors.
The best discs in this category are listed below:
- Western Digital WD Purple 2 TB (€ 67)
- Western Digital WD Purple 3 TB (€ 85)
- Seagate SkyHawk 2 TB (€ 69)
By installing these disks inside the video surveillance system we will be sure to be able to write hundreds of TB per year without suffering deterioration or data loss, even more if we create a RAID with this type of disks.
4) Energy saving hard disk (low power consumption and silent)
For daily use, discs are also commercially available with a much lower rotation speed, therefore extremely silent and with low energy consumption. These discs are ideal for building silent PCs or mini PCs, even if they lose something in terms of speed (they are slower than standard models or gaming models, even if not by much).
Energy-saving models are listed below:
- Western Digital WD Green 1 TB (€ 40)
- Western Digital WD Green 2 TB (€ 72)
We will thus have silent and inexpensive discs from an energy point of view.
5) Hard disk for NAS
Do we have a NAS on which we save files to be shared on multiple PCs?
In this case they must be robust enough to withstand sudden shutdowns and fast enough to guarantee multiple access to the saved files.
The best models of hard drives for NAS are listed below:
- Seagate IronWolf 3 TB (€ 100)
- Western Digital WD Red 3 TB (€ 92)
We mount at least two identical hard drives on the NAS and create the right RAID, so that we always have a redundant copy of the saved files.
6) Super-large hard drives
Are we looking for the most capacious discs in circulation?
In this case we will have to focus on models from at least 4 TB up to 12 TB (the largest disks that can be connected to a classic PC). Many of these disks are only manageable with Windows 10, so make sure you have your PC updated.
Here is a list of super-large discs below:
- Western Digital WD Red 4 TB (115 €)
- Seagate BarraCuda 6 TB (180 €)
- Western Digital WD Red 10 TB (320 €)
- Seagate IronWolf Pro 12 TB (440 €)
- Western Digital WD Gold 12 TB (€ 461)
Prices are starting to be very high, so we recommend using these discs only on professional PCs, on video surveillance systems of a large company or inside high-end servers.
7) Laptop hard drive (2.5 inch)
What if we want a mechanical hard drive on laptops too?
Although the most common upgrade is to remove the old hard drive to place an SSD, we can still remove the optical drive and use a HDD Caddy to mount a 2.5-inch fast drive. Below we have collected the fastest and most capacious disks that can be mounted on a notebook (also MacBook):
- Western Digital WD Blue 1 TB 2.5 '' (50 €)
- Seagate ST2000LM015 Barracuda 2TB 2, 5 '' (115 €)
- Western Digital WD Black 1 TB 2.5 '' (€ 68)
We choose one of the previous models for maximum performance when we save files and documents on our laptop.
READ ALSO: Disc types for PC, hard disk or SSD drive, internal and external
