4TB External drive for $110...

Good news if your PS4 or Xbone is running out of space, this Western Digital external drive is on sale, and eligible for Prime shipping!

If you're getting a PS4 Pro, I highly recommend it, since I already had around 500 gigs of video saved up until last week, and the console's been out for four months... Then again, I save a crap ton of film clips...

Also, Western Digital has never let me down.

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The price here is low enough that I'm considering this, but I'm wary of games loading slower over USB (especially considering how slow the PS4 is when it comes to exporting screenshots/clips)

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It actually improved load times on the Xbox One. Can't say how it does for the PS4. I haven't loaded anything onto an external yet.

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I think the pro is USB-3, so the transfer rates are going ot be higher than any platter drive. I haven't done the research, but a SSD might actually make a difference there with the pro. The old PS4 is USB-2 I think, and that will cause possible issues.

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I thought I looked at that... I might be thinking of bus speed and SATA2 vs SATA3. I remember thinking that it wouldn't matter if I put in a SSD drive internally. Guess I need to go do some more homework, seems like I may be misinformed.

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Don't be. The (theoretical) transfer rate of USB 3.0 is nearly as high as 3rd-generation SATA, and certainly high enough that it's not going to impact the speed of a platter-based mechanical hard drive.

As far as practical experience, I can only speak for the XBone side, but the built-in hard drive in that thing is 5400RPM. I use a 7,200RPM external drive, and games actually load faster from that. The improved performance of the drive itself was more significant than the interface.

I haven't found an official spec for the RPM on the drive Korny posted. It's probably 5400RPM, but even that should put it on level footing with the internal drive.

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I haven't found an official spec for the RPM on the drive Korny posted. It's probably 5400RPM, but even that should put it on level footing with the internal drive.

Yeah, probably 5400 if they're not announcing it specifically. The higher bit density, though, means that more bits pass under the read head in a given amount of time, so the read rate would actually be higher than the built-in drive.

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Ended up getting a 3TB version of this model for $130 CAD (35% discount).

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Don't be. The (theoretical) transfer rate of USB 3.0 is nearly as high as 3rd-generation SATA, and certainly high enough that it's not going to impact the speed of a platter-based mechanical hard drive.

USB is has always been worse than its rated speed though for a variety or reasons. It requires the CPU to be the bus master, it is only half duplex, and the data transfer is not isochronous. This is why firewire 400 would always beat USB2 in the real world, despite it being rated 80 Mbits slower.

It actually could matter in a spinning disk because of the CPU overhead for a usb device. I've seen slower transfer rates from the usb 3 port vs the thunderbolt port on the same drive often.

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Good news if your PS4 or Xbone is running out of space, this Western Digital external drive is on sale, and eligible for Prime shipping!

If you're getting a PS4 Pro, I highly recommend it, since I already had around 500 gigs of video saved up until last week, and the console's been out for four months... Then again, I save a crap ton of film clips...

Also, Western Digital has never let me down.

Western Digital always lets me down. I only trust Hitachi. In fact when I upgraded to a 7200rpm drive for the PS4 I got a Hitachi. WD and Seagate always seem to fail on me at one point or another.

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Western Digital always lets me down. I only trust Hitachi. In fact when I upgraded to a 7200rpm drive for the PS4 I got a Hitachi. WD and Seagate always seem to fail on me at one point or another.

...that Hitachi (HGST) is owned by Western Digital, right? Since 2011.

WD/HGST is hands-down the most reliable drive brand for me these days. I have dozens of drives that I maintain, and the WDs have been bullet-proof.

Edit: added qualifier

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Western Digital always lets me down. I only trust Hitachi. In fact when I upgraded to a 7200rpm drive for the PS4 I got a Hitachi. WD and Seagate always seem to fail on me at one point or another.

...that Hitachi (HGST) is owned by Western Digital, right? Since 2011.

WD/HGST is hands-down the most reliable drive brand for me these days. I have dozens of drives that I maintain, and the WDs have been bullet-proof.

Edit: added qualifier

This is true, but between drives branded Western Digital and Drives branded Hitachi / HGST, I've noticed a huge difference.

I'm not imagining it either:

https://arstechnica.com/information-technology/2016/02/hgst-hard-disks-still-super-reliable-seagates-have-greatly-imp...

WD drives are literally the worst.

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WD drives are literally the worst.

This is my experience as well. Western Digital bought SanDisk last year and I have become concerned about SanDisks long term product quality. I'm hoping they operate independently of eachother and it was more of an in name only type of deal.

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This is true, but between drives branded Western Digital and Drives branded Hitachi / HGST, I've noticed a huge difference.

I'm not imagining it either:

https://arstechnica.com/information-technology/2016/02/hgst-hard-disks-still-super-reliable-seagates-have-greatly-imp...

WD drives are literally the worst.

Been a while since I checked the Backblaze drive reliability reports, but it looks like Seagate has really cleaned up their act over the last couple years. Fortunately, being owned by WD hasn't seemed to affect the quality of HGST drives. :) I'm going to be in the market for a new set of NAS drives later this year, so I'll definitely be checking out the HGST offerings.

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I'm going to be in the market for a new set of NAS drives later this year, so I'll definitely be checking out the HGST offerings.

Shouldn't you stagger your purchase of NAS drives to reduce the risk of concurrent failures? Regarding the W.A.F. I find it a lot easier to justify a drive upgrade every now & then instead of dropping $500-800 on a whole set of drives. ;)

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I'm going to be in the market for a new set of NAS drives later this year, so I'll definitely be checking out the HGST offerings.

Shouldn't you stagger your purchase of NAS drives to reduce the risk of concurrent failures? Regarding the W.A.F. I find it a lot easier to justify a drive upgrade every now & then instead of dropping $500-800 on a whole set of drives. ;)

Here at work we've had more or less the same NAS setup for almost ten years. with periodical data transfer to external drives. All WD, without a single HD failure.

Heck, my computer had three WD drives, with the primary being from 2004, and by the time the CPU gave out in 2014, the same old drive was still going strong.

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I've been buying WD red drives for my NAS for a few years and I fill the drives before they fail. I literally have a box full of broken Seagates, though. (Stupid hard to get to waste recyclers...)

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I literally have a box full of broken Seagates, though. (Stupid hard to get to waste recyclers...)

Hard drive magnets are ridiculously strong and the platters just fun to mess with. Old hard drives are much more useful in pieces :)

-Disciple

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Those things provide the best refrigerator magnets you'll ever find. Just watch your fingers when putting them on (seriously).

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I don't think that the console's operating system is really designed to handle an ssd. It might not be a good idea.

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I don't think that the console's operating system is really designed to handle an ssd. It might not be a good idea.

All of my games on the Xbox One are on an SSD. Boot-up of games is much, much faster than it was before. (Destiny, for example, takes a couple of seconds to get to the splash screen.) I have not had any problems since install (many months ago).

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I don't think that the console's operating system is really designed to handle an ssd. It might not be a good idea.

All of my games on the Xbox One are on an SSD. Boot-up of games is much, much faster than it was before. (Destiny, for example, takes a couple of seconds to get to the splash screen.) I have not had any problems since install (many months ago).

Good to know. I remember reading to use caution when installing an SSD n a console. Maybe it's been long enough that the console makers have caught up with software updates.

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Same experience for me. Even though the OS itself is still running off of the internal drive, with my games running from the external, the internal drive is less bogged down. So I found that during times when the games are loading or otherwise accessing storage heavily, previously the XBox dashboard/menus would become extremely sluggish. With the games on a separate drive, this is much less so.

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I recall numerous tests (easily youtube-able) that determined that Hybrids gave a better overall performance, and the price gave them the edge over SSDs. Sure, as an external there is less issue with durability SSD-wise, but I'm not eager to fork over $1k for a more durable external storage. ;)

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I recall numerous tests (easily youtube-able) that determined that Hybrids gave a better overall performance, and the price gave them the edge over SSDs. Sure, as an external there is less issue with durability SSD-wise, but I'm not eager to fork over $1k for a more durable external storage. ;)

I'm just going to jump in and bust your balls for referencing "easily YouTube-able" videos without actually including them to provide your point. Just because that's what you'd do in my place ;p

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I recall numerous tests (easily youtube-able) that determined that Hybrids gave a better overall performance, and the price gave them the edge over SSDs. Sure, as an external there is less issue with durability SSD-wise, but I'm not eager to fork over $1k for a more durable external storage. ;)

I'm just going to jump in and bust your balls for referencing "easily YouTube-able" videos without actually including them to provide your point. Just because that's what you'd do in my place ;p

Heh, I have a valid excuse for the rare occurence of me not backing up what I say with evidence, but fair enough, I can pull a Cody every once in a while, given my record. :P

I'll do you one better than linking random videos; an extensive article by Eurogamer. Their results skew a bit more towards the SSD in speed, but only marginally faster than a hybrid in most cases, and definitely not worth the cost...

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I recall numerous tests (easily youtube-able) that determined that Hybrids gave a better overall performance, and the price gave them the edge over SSDs. Sure, as an external there is less issue with durability SSD-wise, but I'm not eager to fork over $1k for a more durable external storage. ;)

I'm just going to jump in and bust your balls for referencing "easily YouTube-able" videos without actually including them to provide your point. Just because that's what you'd do in my place ;p

Heh, I have a valid excuse for the rare occurence of me not backing up what I say with evidence, but fair enough, I can pull a Cody every once in a while, given my record. :P

I'll do you one better than linking random videos; an extensive article by Eurogamer. Their results skew a bit more towards the SSD in speed, but only marginally faster than a hybrid in most cases, and definitely not worth the cost...

Yeah at the point that I'm splurging for a another HD, I might as well get the fastest. I'm a bit ruthless about my space anyways. Also my experience is with my XB1, I haven't needed another HD for my PS4 yet... I feel like by the time I do, I'll just get the Pro.

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Yeah at the point that I'm splurging for a another HD, I might as well get the fastest. I'm a bit ruthless about my space anyways. Also my experience is with my XB1, I haven't needed another HD for my PS4 yet... I feel like by the time I do, I'll just get the Pro.

That's what I did.

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Samsung T3 external USB SSD up to 2TB.

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4TB External drive for $110... (Gaming)

Any impact on load speed?

Any impact on load speed?

Any impact on load speed?

I looked it up, and they're all USB 3.0

orly?

Any impact on load speed?

Any impact on load speed?

Thanks for the tips

Any impact on load speed?