Best 1TB Internal Hard Drives of the Year

Are you searching for the best 1TB internal hard drives on the market this year? Well, look no further. We’ve got everything you need right here.

As time goes on, games and software get larger and tend to take up a lot more space. Flash drives start to feature higher capacities, memory cards, and also hard drives. Nowadays you can get a hard drive with a capacity that exceeds 10GB. But do you really need that much space? The new hard drive standard capacity is 2TB, but let’s be honest – most of us won’t even use a third of that. So why pay more for a capacity you won’t even use? One of the best 1TB internal hard drives should be plenty.

If all you want to do with your system is store a few games, some software like Photoshop, Autocad, Office, Skype, and then a huge chunk of media files – for example, 200GB of photos and videos, a 1TB hard drive will be more than enough. You will most likely use only half of the capacity that a 1TB drive offers. We have created a list of the best 1TB internal hard drives available on the market. Take a look!

1. Seagate 1TB FireCuda Gaming SSHD – for performance seekers

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Seagate FireCuda is a solid state hybrid drive that has only two capacities: 1TB and 2TB. Most users will choose exactly the 1TB version because it’s cheaper than the 2TB version and often 1TB of capacity is enough. Firecuda is made for performance, so it’s suitable for gaming and managing other demanding applications or software. It’s a great choice for a secondary drive or and it can also work great as a primary drive if you’re on a tight budget.

On our tests, FireCuda reached a sequential read speed of 216.9MB/s and write speed of 211.4MB/s. It manages to do so thanks to its intelligent firmware that combines 8GB NAND flash memory with a mechanical drive.

Read our full Seagate FireCuda Gaming 3.5-inch SSHD Review

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2. WD Blue 1TB 7200 RPM – great for just about anything

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Western Digital Blue 1TB is one of the best choices when looking for a hard drive. It’s very versatile, and you just can’t go wrong with WD Blue regardless of the purpose of the use. There are two versions of WD Blue 1TB available – 5400rpm and 7200rpm. The 7200rpm version is a little more expensive than the 5400rpm drive. However, it’s totally worth few extra bucks as you will get your hands on a noticeably faster and better performing hard drive.

As for other specifications, WD Blue comes with 64MB of cache memory and SATA 6 Gb/s interface. It offers everything that the average user would need, although it comes with only a two-year warranty. If you want to a step up from WD Blue, take a look at your next pick.

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3. WD Black 1TB – boosted WD blue

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If you need that extra performance over Western Digital Blue, WD Black is probably the best choice. It costs just a little more than Western Digital Blue but features the same cache of 64MB, same SATA 6 Gb/s interface, and a spindle speed of 7200rpm, despite similar hardware, it scores higher data transfer speeds, has upgraded firmware, and an improved warranty of five years.

If WD Blue is more for casual use and is a mainstream hard drive, then Black is made for performance and will be a great secondary drive for gaming rigs as well as work stations. However, regarding performance, it’s not as fast as FireCuda but costs about the same.

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4. Seagate 1TB BarraCuda – one of the best cost/performance ratio

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Seagate Barracuda is a perfect hard drive for most consumers as it offers high performance that comes for a very affordable cost. If you’re building a PC and just want a good, reliable hard drive with up to level sequential read/write speeds, you can’t go wrong with Barracuda. As Seagate claims, it’s all-in-one storage, so it’s versatile. The main competitor is WD Blue. However, we think that Barracuda is a wiser choice as all of its desktop drives feature a spindle speed of 7200rpm where WD Blue offers a 7200rpm version only for the 1TB model.

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5. WD Red 1TB – sensible choice for NAS systems

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WD Red is made for use in NAS (Network-attached storage) systems. It will work great in the small office and home NAS systems and offer decent performance. This drive comes with spindle a spindle speed of 5400rpm, SATA 6 Gb/s, and 64MB Cache.

People often think that they need large hard drives for NAS, but it’s not the truth. For home use, 1TB can be more than enough, and even for small businesses that don’t need to store anything more than some documents, and media files. An alternative to WD Red is Seagate Ironwolf, and it’s also a great drive, but slightly more expensive and if you will get a hard drive with a capacity of 1TB, there is no real difference, better save few bucks.

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6. Seagate SkyHawk 1TB – for videos and surveillance

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Seagate SkyHawk is designed for surveillance and storing videos. It’s a very reliable drive that can withstand massive 24/7 workloads. SkyHawk has a unique Image Perfect firmware that provides crisp and clear video materials.

If you need the drive to store videos from security systems, this is one of the best choices. Particularly for small applications like a home security system that features cameras or offices.

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7. WD Gold 1TB – for reliability, heavy workloads and server use

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When it comes to servers and enterprise hard drives, we all want to have a reliable drive as possible that can handle heavy workloads, everyday usage of 24/7/365, and also has decent performance. If you need the drive to run your web page server or manage any other enterprise tasks, WD Gold is one of the best choices. For many websites, 1TB of storage capacity will be more than enough, so you shouldn’t focus on capacity but quality.

WD Gold features a spindle speed of 7200rpm and 128MB of cache. It comes with a five-year warranty. We highly recommend this drive for servers.

Our Verdict on the Best 1TB Internal Hard Drives 

Trying to choose one of the best 1TB internal hard drives can be confusing, especially if you don’t have a clue how a hard drive works and what’s the difference between spindle speeds, cache, and so on. All hard drives on this article are the best for the appliances they are manufactured for. If you need a simple and good hard drive with the best cost/performance ratio, Seagate Barracuda or WD Blue are your best bets.

If you’re looking for that extra performance, choose WD Black or Seagate FireCuda. However, as most of us use an SSD as our primary drive and use hard drives to only store media files or installation files, the influence of a hard drive on your system decreases, and for most cases, an up-to-date hard drive will be more than enough.

Last update on 2024-05-03 at 06:53 / Affiliate links / Images from Amazon Product Advertising API