The general question: if I run all sorts of tasks on the PC, should I get an HDD with higher random or sequential data rates?
More specifically:
I'm using an 80GB HDD to host the operating systems and keep all installations and data on a secondary 2TB WD Green drive, however I'm fairly sure it has a bad sector as it started not responding a few days ago, and generally when accessing it the system starts going really slow, plus it failed to show up in myComputer in a few boots, I had to disconnect and reconnect it again.
Now I'm going to buy another hard disk, and I'm between the WD Purple which is for security usage, with a claimed AFR < 0.8% (I don't really believe it's the real number but what else is there to suggest safety?) and a Seagate SV35.6, also with a claimed AFR of < 1%, both 2TB.
The WD shows to be much faster in random I/O, but loads slower on sequential I/O (150MB/s vs 600MB/s max), best comparison I have found is here:
http://hdd.userbenchmark.com/Compare/WD-Purple-2TB-2014-vs-Seagate-Video-SV356-Series-2TB/2662vs1816
Also, the WD suggests it's more resistant to heat and vibration, as it is designed to work in an up to 8-disk RAID configuration, 24/7.
My use is all around, from storage to gaming to development (consider the tools to be heavy as they get) and possibly also video processing in the not so far future. So I really cannot come to choose which one is more suitable, as I have little clue if most of my I/Os will be random or sequential. Also note that I have an unstable configuration on the desktop, it has superb capabilities (5 years old but I got the fastest stuff that were available for near-logical price at the day) so I have a blue screen on average every 6-8 hours (using XP home and x64 alike, and also with any other OS I've used), I don't know if that has any effect on the decision.
Consider a RAID for cloning as possible in the near future, so if there's any huge advantage of either one as far as safety goes, it can be crucial.
The general question is what can I expect more, random or sequential I/O? Other than that, anything else is welcome.