Hard Drive
Hard Drives - what kind and what size?
There are three main types of interface - SATA (Serial ATA) interface, M.2 SATA interface and M.2 PCIE interface.
There are two main types of drives available - Mechanical Drives and Solid State Drives. Mechanical drives use the SATA (Serial ATA) interface. Solid State Drives may use SATA, M.2 SATA or M.2 PCIE interface.
Mechanical drives are slower, but have larger storage capacities and a lower cost. A commonly stated measurement of performance for mechanaical hard drives is RPM (Revolutions Per Minute). This is the speed at which the discs inside the drive spin and the faster they spin the faster than can retrieve data. Laptop mechanical drives usually are 5400rpm or 7200rpm. Desktop mechanical drives are usually 7200rpm. Another specification is the buffer size, which is the amount of data that can be held in the volatile memory of the hard drive. A larger buffer size can improve the performance.
Solid State Drives are faster, but have smaller storage capacities and higher cost. M.2 PCIE interface drives have faster speed than SATA and M.2 SATA interface drives.
Some PC builders make hybrid computers with both Solid State and Mechanical drive technology. Here are common examples:-
1. Two partitions - They put the operating system on the Solid State Drive for better speed and data on Mechanical drive for best storage capacity. The disadvantage of this is that you end up with two drive letters (partitions) and users can get confused with where to save/retrieve data.
2. Solid State Drive cache. A Solid State Drive and a mechanical drive is installed. The operating system and data is stored on the mechanical drive and the Solid State Drive is configured to cache recent files. This typically results in 80% of the performance of a Solid State Drive alone PC, but with the large storage capacity of a mechanical drive and without confusion of having multiple partitions.
The best choice will depend on your current and future storage and speed requirements. It is always very hard to guess what your storage requirements will be toward the end of the new PCs life.
There are three main types of interface - SATA (Serial ATA) interface, M.2 SATA interface and M.2 PCIE interface.
There are two main types of drives available - Mechanical Drives and Solid State Drives. Mechanical drives use the SATA (Serial ATA) interface. Solid State Drives may use SATA, M.2 SATA or M.2 PCIE interface.
Mechanical drives are slower, but have larger storage capacities and a lower cost. A commonly stated measurement of performance for mechanaical hard drives is RPM (Revolutions Per Minute). This is the speed at which the discs inside the drive spin and the faster they spin the faster than can retrieve data. Laptop mechanical drives usually are 5400rpm or 7200rpm. Desktop mechanical drives are usually 7200rpm. Another specification is the buffer size, which is the amount of data that can be held in the volatile memory of the hard drive. A larger buffer size can improve the performance.
Solid State Drives are faster, but have smaller storage capacities and higher cost. M.2 PCIE interface drives have faster speed than SATA and M.2 SATA interface drives.
Some PC builders make hybrid computers with both Solid State and Mechanical drive technology. Here are common examples:-
1. Two partitions - They put the operating system on the Solid State Drive for better speed and data on Mechanical drive for best storage capacity. The disadvantage of this is that you end up with two drive letters (partitions) and users can get confused with where to save/retrieve data.
2. Solid State Drive cache. A Solid State Drive and a mechanical drive is installed. The operating system and data is stored on the mechanical drive and the Solid State Drive is configured to cache recent files. This typically results in 80% of the performance of a Solid State Drive alone PC, but with the large storage capacity of a mechanical drive and without confusion of having multiple partitions.
The best choice will depend on your current and future storage and speed requirements. It is always very hard to guess what your storage requirements will be toward the end of the new PCs life.