Seagate Barracuda vs WD Blue: Which is best for a Linux home partition?
by MirceaKitsune from LinuxQuestions.org on (#5ARDX)
I've had a 2TB hard drive from Seagate for roughly a decade. Despite having no read / write errors to this day, it's getting old and I'm nervous about using it for data storage... especially since every once in a while I think I hear a click (could be just a fan though). I'm going to upgrade it to something newer, especially since it's filling up and I need a 4TB drive now. I'm thorn between two choices, which judging based on reviews are both very tied and hard to call... it would help to have your input please.
Option 1: Seagate BarraCuda 4TB, 5400rpm, 256MB cache
Option 2: WD Blue 4TB, 5400rpm, 64MB cache
I'm most interested in reliability: I don't care which is fastest, only which is guaranteed to last the most without breaking. Write performance in particular is secondary, as the most file-size intensive things I use are some games so read speeds would be more important. At this chapter I only understand that at least the Barracuda uses SMR technology instead of CMR, which yields in less performance to writing... not sure about the Blue one.
I plan to use it with Linux openSUSE Tumbleweed x64, mounted from fstab as a data drive supplementing my home partition: There will be a single ext4 partition on it (will likely format it from the YaST2 Partitioner), data will be transferred using rsync. I'm asking on the openSUSE / Linux forums too as I'd like to know which is expected to work best under this OS and with Linux in general.
Note: Please don't suggest "for X more you could get the Y enterprise version which is Z better". I already looked at the available options, given the stores I can buy from and the budget I must stay under... the two I linked above are the only versions I can get. The only similar option available in one store is another version of the Blue, same specs except it says "256MB cache"... let me know if that has any advantage instead.
Option 1: Seagate BarraCuda 4TB, 5400rpm, 256MB cache
Option 2: WD Blue 4TB, 5400rpm, 64MB cache
I'm most interested in reliability: I don't care which is fastest, only which is guaranteed to last the most without breaking. Write performance in particular is secondary, as the most file-size intensive things I use are some games so read speeds would be more important. At this chapter I only understand that at least the Barracuda uses SMR technology instead of CMR, which yields in less performance to writing... not sure about the Blue one.
I plan to use it with Linux openSUSE Tumbleweed x64, mounted from fstab as a data drive supplementing my home partition: There will be a single ext4 partition on it (will likely format it from the YaST2 Partitioner), data will be transferred using rsync. I'm asking on the openSUSE / Linux forums too as I'd like to know which is expected to work best under this OS and with Linux in general.
Note: Please don't suggest "for X more you could get the Y enterprise version which is Z better". I already looked at the available options, given the stores I can buy from and the budget I must stay under... the two I linked above are the only versions I can get. The only similar option available in one store is another version of the Blue, same specs except it says "256MB cache"... let me know if that has any advantage instead.