
Once you know what speeds you want, you then need to think about reliability and how much you’re going to use the hard drive. On the other hand, if you’re using it for storage or day-to-day use, 5,400 RPMs is more than enough and is usually cheaper to boot. So, if you’re doing a higher-intensity task that has a lot of reading and writing, such as gaming or using editing software, then you want to go for the higher RPM speeds.

There are speeds between the two, and sometimes even higher than 7,200, but it seems these are the two standards the industry has set for faster and slower hard drives. Speed tends to be on everyone’s minds these days, and when you’re picking an internal hard drive, you’re primarily going to run into two speeds, which are denoted in Rotations Per Minute (RPMs): either 7,200 or 5,400 RPMs. What To Look For in an Internal Hard Drive in 2023 What To Look For in an Internal Hard Drive in 2023 Best Internal HDD Overall: Seagate BarraCuda Best Budget Internal HDD: Western Digital 6TB WD Blue Best Internal HDD for Laptops: Seagate BarraCuda 2TB Best Internal HDD for NAS: Seagate IronWolf Pro 8TB NAS Best High Capacity Internal HDD: Seagate 18TB Exos Best Internal HDD for PS4 Pro: Western Digital 1TB WD Black Update, : We’ve reviewed our recommendations and are confident these are still the best internal HDDs you can buy. ✗ Can be a bit pricey compared to non-NAS HDDs ✗ Higher cost and lower RPMs with larger sizes ✗ Price per gigabyte for HDD Pro models increases, rather than decreases ✓ Best balance between price and performance With a no-touch head, 7,200 RPM speed, and 64MB cache, the WD Black is an excellent performance HDD for your PS4 Pro at an actually reasonable price.

It's not easy to find HDDs that come in higher capacities, but the Seagate 18TB Exonos manages to provide you with an enterprise-level of quality, while also not being that expensive all things considered. While it may cost a little bit more, the ability to run constantly at high speeds, and the NAS support through IronWolf Health Management, makes the IronWolf Pro one of the best HDDs for NAS usage. It's not easy to find good laptop HDDs that don't cost an arm and a leg, but the Seagate BarraCuda 2TB manages to give you relatively good performance at a budget price. It's hard to beat the price per gigabyte of the WD Blue at larger storage sizes, although that does come at the cost of slower RPMs.


If you want a performance HDD with a budget price, the Seagate BarraCuda 2TB slots into that spot just perfectly.
