The Best HDD for Gaming in 2022

Seagate is a household name when it comes to PC gaming and all-purpose desktop computing. Four decades of experience in manufacturing computer parts and specializing in storage solutions make Seagate one of the most trusted companies in the world of data storage. This Fremont-based company also works closely with Microsoft on making official Xbox drives. It knows gaming. As such, gamers trust Seagate drives with their data.

Today, Seagate offers a wide selection of computer drives aimed at everyday consumers, professionals, and enterprises. Our choice as the best HDD for gaming is Seagate Barracuda, an all-around hardware that combines speed with versatility and adds incredible value to the deal. This is a standard internal 3.5” HDD that connects via the SATA III port, making it compatible with pretty much any desktop PC on the market. It’s great for storing AAA games due to its high capacity. The basic models come with 1 TB of storage space, and Seagate now offers drives up to 14 TB in size. Unless you plan on installing every single game from your library at the same time, it’s highly unlikely you’ll ever run out of space with such a massive drive.

All of the drives in the Barracuda series spin at 7,200 RPM, so you won’t need to purchase the largest hard drive to enjoy the best performance, as is usually the case with HDD manufacturers. That being said, we’d suggest avoiding the 1 TB model if you also want the most cache possible. All drives come with 256 MB of cache except the 1 TB model that comes with just 64 MB. While that isn’t much of a dealbreaker for everyday use, it can cripple your games’ performance, especially for super demanding titles like Cyberpunk 2077 that rely on loading speed to deliver the best experience. There’s also the matter of value, as you’re getting better performance and storage on a 2 TB drive at just a slight price increase.

Speaking of prices, Seagate has the best 2TB HDD for gaming, hands down. The drives cost just slightly above $50, meaning that you’re essentially paying under $30 per terabyte. That’s already an amazing value, but the cost-per-terabyte drops as the capacity increases, meaning the bigger disks are an even better value. The 2TB one is still a sweet spot, though. It’s affordable without sacrificing any performance. And since it’s Seagate’s most popular product, they’re bound to have a lot in stock.

We can’t show enough love for Seagate’s products. That’s why we had to include another product from this company, this time a hybrid drive that combines the best of SSD and HDD. That makes it the fastest HDD for gaming.

The way Seagate FireCuda was designed is especially interesting. At its core, it’s a 7,200 RPM hard drive, or 5,400 RPM drive if you go with the 2.5” version. It doesn’t even have much cache, just the standard 64 MB. But it uses the latest NAND flash technology with 8GB of extra capacity that acts as a true buffer. This flash storage isn’t directly available to users. Instead, the drive uses it to store files for quick access. It’s all automated and requires no extra setup. Just connect it to the SATA port, boot up, and you’re ready to go.

That’s another reason why this is a popular HDD for gaming on consoles, especially the last generation PS4 and Xbox One devices. Both consoles came with hard drives installed, but manufacturers didn’t stop users from switching out these drives for faster SSHD ones. The only thing to remember is to purchase the 2.5” model, as it is the one compatible with laptops. Pop it in your PlayStation or Xbox, and, voila - it becomes a console hard drive.

If you want the best loading speeds in your games, but pricey SSDs are out of the question, FireCuda is the top gaming HDD for you. Depending on the game, you’ll see loading speeds up to 5x faster compared to standard drives. Even if it doesn’t come close to the blistering M 2 SSD speeds, this is an incredible upgrade from the age-old tech. Best of all, these drives are very durable. Seagate issues a five-year warranty with each unit, and 2.5” drives employ additional power-saving features to elongate the drive’s life and reduce heating. 

With all those bells and whistles, you might expect the Seagate FireCuda to cost an arm and a leg. But the best SSHD for gaming costs just slightly more than the comparable Barracuda HDD. The only downside is limited storage. These SSHDs have a capacity of only 1 TB and 2 TB. So if you need more storage, you’ll have to get a regular drive for PC.

Another big name in the world of computer storage is the Western Digital Corporation or WD for short. WD is another American old-timer and innovator when it comes to hard drives. Among the many products that this company offers today, there’s no denying that its most popular gaming HDD is WD Blue.

Before we continue, a short guide for purchasing WD drives is in order. The HDDs are color-coded, so the green line is the eco-friendly low power consumption one, red drives are for NAS systems, black is enthusiast-level and external drives, while the blue ones are all-rounders. We wanted a budget-friendly solution for this list, so we chose the blue drive. To say that WD Blue is a popular choice would be an understatement. It has almost become a default choice for many gamers looking to expand their storage on a budget.

Let’s talk about price first. This is an incredibly affordable gaming hard drive, available for under $40 for a 500 GB model or just a few dollars more for a 1 TB drive. The latter is the best option right now if you’re building a multi-drive configuration or planning a RAID setup. 

We’re recommending the 1 TB drive over 2 TB and other bigger models because of how WD makes these HDDs. The 1 TB model spins at both 7,200 RPM and 5,400 RPM. All higher capacity drives are locked to 5,400 RPM, which is not ideal in this day and age. Compared to Seagate’s best HDD for gaming, WD Blue with 2+ TB of storage is simply not a great deal. On the flip side, some of these bigger drives are equipped with 256 MB of cache. But we highly recommend shopping around and deciding yourself whether it’s worth sacrificing RPM for a bigger cache.

All in all, WD Blue remains a good choice even in the age of SSD dominance. Solid-state technology still can’t offer the same value for terabytes of storage, and content creators that record and edit many gameplay videos will still find plenty to like with this gaming hard drive.

Toshiba is an IT giant that needs no special introduction. This Japanese company has been operational for nearly 150 years and is responsible for some of the best tech in our homes. You’ve probably owned a Toshiba laptop at some point. Toshiba made quite a splash on the PC storage market with its prestigious line of X300 hard drives. These aren’t your everyday HDDs, as they’re more secure and faster than nearly anything else on the market right now.

Toshiba X300 is a performance drive marketed around gaming and content creator segments of the market. It’ll be the best gaming HDD if you’re not just playing games but also creating content around them. At first glance, this hard drive might not seem very different from any other hard drives for PC. It spins at 7,200 RPM, connects through a SATA port, and isn’t packed in a fancy case. But its true strength lies in all the tech Toshiba managed to fit into it. First of all, it’s a storage beast. The minimum capacity is 4 TB, and there are models with up to 16 TB of storage, which is perfect for hundreds of PC game installations. It also has a lot of memory cache. Toshiba X300 comes with buffers of up to 512 MB, ensuring maximum performance for your apps. 

It’s not just the best gaming hard drive; it can also protect your data from external damage. All X300 models have a dual-stage actuator design, which allows faster and safer data access. In addition, Toshiba added an internal shock sensor to ensure no data is lost, while its Stable Platter reduces vibrations by stabilizing the motor on both ends. This is why gaming streamers and YouTubers should go with this drive, especially if they keep lots of footage as a backup. 

While this is arguably the best hard drive for Steam gaming, keep in mind that this particular model can’t be a laptop hard drive. Toshiba does make 2.5” models, but they’re not nearly as fast as the X300. The only real downside with these drives is the price. Starting at almost $100, these aren’t the most affordable drives for mere video game storage, and the prices can get quite high if you’re going for eight or more TB of storage space. But if you’re creating 4K gaming content, the Toshiba X300 is simply a must-buy for your rig. No other drive can store so much data and still run fast.

Aside from PC drives, WD also makes the best HDD for console gaming. Here we’re talking about the WD Black P10 Game Drive. Unlike other drives from WD’s incredible opus, this is an external drive. It has precisely the same performance as an internal hard drive through a speedy USB 3.0 connection.

The P10 is quite a looker, too. Enclosed in a cool black industrial-looking case, with the logo imprinted in bold font, you might mistake this drive for a piece of military tech. Perhaps it’s no surprise then that there’s also a Call of Duty-themed model. Of course, it isn’t the best WD HDD for gaming simply because of its appearance, especially not when it comes to console gaming.

As consoles are moving to SSD for storage but keeping compatibility with previous generations, gamers are facing a dilemma; on one side is a super-fast SSD powered through PCIe 4, but on the other is limited storage and a rough reminder that Call of Duty can easily take up 200+ gigs of HDD space. Luckily, both PlayStation and Xbox support loading old-gen games through a 3.0 USB, where the WD Black P10 comes to the rescue. 

This drive is at the top of the gaming hard drives list thanks to its performance and USB 3.2 Gen 1 connection. WD states that P10 can reach transfer speeds of 140 MB/s, and with up to 5 TB of storage, you can rest assured that you’ll always have your gaming library with you ready to go. If your console’s OS is up to date, you won’t even need to format it specifically for console gaming. Just plug it in and let the console prepare it for game installs.

While WD Black doesn’t come cheap (the 4 TB model costs more than $100), it is the best hard drive for gaming if you like free games. The selection of freebies changes from time to time, and retailers often have different offers. So make sure you check what’s in the gift basket before snatching one of these drives up. For us, it is a must-have for any gamer who likes to play various games across different console generations.