HDD Upgrade: SSHD 5400 rpm vs HDD 7200 rpm

[dpjglass]

Hi guys,

I wanted to pick your brains and get some advice around upgrading the hard drive in my laptop.

My dilemma is choosing between SSHD 5400 rpm and HDD 7200 rpm for Windows 10 laptop.

At present I have a 750GB 2.5 HDD 5400 rpm. I use Captivate 9 quite a lot along with Photoshop CC 2017 and Illustrator CC 2017. Reading various articles I gather there would be some performance improvements running these apps from the flash part of the SSHD (the Seagate option i'm looking at has 8GB). However the files sizes for all three apps can be quite large (50 - 100 mb) on occasions, so I imagine the read/write speeds of the 7200 rpm option might be better. Obviously a pure SSD would be perfect, but simply too expensive for me when looking at drives in the 750GB - 1TB range.

Any advice would be appreciated.

Thanks,

Dan

[RodWard · Accepted solution]

I cannot tell you which of those drives would give better performance (though I suspect it would be the one with at least partial SSD) but I can tell you that changing my own 5400 spinning disk to a full SSD Samsung drive a couple of years back increased Captivate's responsiveness and performance by at least four or five times.

I know you said you can't afford one, but consider the amount of time you spend waiting around for things to happen and multiply that lost time by your hourly rate.  You may find that you CAN justify the expense. 

I now take this same drive with me from laptop to laptop when I upgrade.

[Jack423]

I think that you should go for the 1Tb HDD and find one that has a higher default cache, like 128mb. I know there is a Seagate drive that goes for about 60 - 70 USD that follows the specs I listed. But, if you by chance, have an nvme slot on your laptop, then I would highly suggest using Intel's new Optane memory technology. It is basically the same thing as an SSHD, but you can choose your cache size and higher performance memory.

Here is a video explaining in more depth what Intel's Optane memory is:

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=WwH5Q8ZFJvw

[seagates70524447]

Hi and thanks for considering Seagate!

To answer your HDD/SSHD question, we would like to provide some information that might be helpful in your decision making. Generally, the SSHD is recommended for people who would like to combine some positive attributes of SSD and HDD in one drive and do not have space or do not want to combine a SSD (for OS/programs) with a regular HDD (storage/backup). We do have some positive feedback in regards to performance after the 8GB cache has been filled up (e.g. after booting or loading 3 or more times).

If you'd like a little more information on how these drives stack up performance-wise, here are a couple of charts we would like to share - they refer to gaming scenarios but we think it might just be interesting to compare the different results.

The first one compares startup times across several popular games across a traditional spinning 7200 RPM HDD, our SSHD, and an M.2 SSD (128GB). The white is for SSD, the orange for our SSHD, and the grey for the 7200 spinning HDD.

Startup Times

The next one compares the first 3 days of gaming storage utilization across several popular titles, and SYSmark ratings from various drive types and combinations. First of the grays is 7200 RPM 1TB spinning HDD, second (lightest gray) is our SSHD, third (darkest gray) is an SSD + 7200 RPM HDD combo, purple is SSD + our SSHD combo, and lastly blue is SSD.

First 3 Days Gaming Storage Utilization

Regardless of what you end up deciding is best for your needs, we want to say thank you for considering Seagate!

----

Seagate Technology | Official Forums Team

IronWolf Drives for NAS Applications

SkyHawk​ Drives for Surveillance Applications

BarraCuda Drives for PC and Gaming

[dpjglass]

Thanks guys for all your feedback.

Lots of food for thought. Especially RodWard who's had me revisit the pure SSD options with my calculator! 🙂

[RodWard]

After experiencing the difference in perfomance of replacing my old 5400 spinning disk with a fast SSD I would never go back.

However, I would recommend you get a good quality drive, not the cheapest you can find. Unlike most spinning drives, if your SSD happens to die, there is no chance of recovering any data from it.   The Samsung drive I chose comes with a 10 year replacement warranty. But they don't promise to pay you back for any value of lost data.  So you should still have a good routine of doing regular full system backups to project yourself just in case your SSD goes belly up one day.

[randymorris]

Have yo checked out the Barracuda Drive + Optane Memory option? Blazing Fast, Budget Friendly! Seagate Barracuda HDD + Intel Optane Memory - YouTube

Thanks

Randy

Adobe Creative Cloud - Adobe Stock Photo - Macbook Pro - Seagate BarraCuda HDD - Seagate FireCuda SSD - Seagate IronWolf NAS