When you are building a new PC or upgrading your existing one, it’s important to choose the right storage device. A solid storage system ensures that you get the optimal performance from your computer and effectively execute tasks such as gaming, rendering, or productivity.
Storage devices have drastically changed throughout the decade, and it’s really difficult to keep up with all the formats and technologies. In this article, we will be comparing HDD, SSD, and NVMe storage devices to help you select the best storage device for your computer.
HDD
Hard Disk Drive or HDD is often bigger and bolder in contrast to its SSD and NVMe counterparts. Currently, one of the best HDD available on the market is the Seagate BarraCuda. This internal storage device has a 3.5-inch form factor and 7200 rounds per minute of speed. With a SATA 6 Gbps interface, they can reach a maximum of 220 megabytes per second data transfer. The benefit of getting an HDD is that they often cost significantly lower than an SSD or an NMVe while providing you with the same or even more storage capacity.
However, the physical aspect of an HDD limits its speed and performance as it takes a longer time to process and retrieve data electronically. Thus it makes sense to go for an HDD as a secondary storage solution where you can care less about performance and data transfer speed. Moreover, from a budget perspective, HDDs offer you more storage at a much lower price.
SATA SSD
SSD falls right between an HDD and NVMe in terms of speed and size. For instance, the 2.5-inch Samsung 870 EVO offers a sequential Read and Write speed of up to 560MB/s. This makes it much smaller and faster in comparison to a full-blown HDD. Despite having a SATA interface, these numbers look great.
The positive sides of getting SATA SSDs are their compact form factor and remarkable jump in data transfer speed. They are reasonably priced and deliver excellent performance compared to a Hard Disk Drive. Nonetheless, they are not recommended for tasks or applications that require the highest speed and performance, such as gaming. For general PC usage, SATA SSDs are simply the best.
NVMe
NVMes are far more superior than the other two, with the only downside of being more expensive. Take the WD Black SN850, for example. The 1TB variant is currently priced around 165 dollars which also happens to be heavily discounted. However, even with the discounted price tag, it costs more than double compared to the 1TB Seagate Barracuda HDD.
But is getting an NVMe SSD worth it, though? With a whopping fast 5300MB/s sequential write and 7000MB/s read speed, we certainly think it is. Speed of this extent makes NVMe storage ideal for gaming, rendering, and similar performance-demanding tasks. Thus you have the price to pay NVMe is worth it!
So that was all about choosing the right storage device. There are also plenty of factors to consider when choosing the right storage device. You might have a laptop instead of a desktop, and what interface it has also mattered. All of these storage devices come both in internal and external forms, which depicts your choice as well.
You can also blend two of these devices together for the best outcome. Keep your Windows installed in an SSD drive for faster boot time and large files on an HDD that you don’t often need to access. Go for the external ones if you stay on the move quite often. For gaming, however, nothing comes closer to what an NVMe storage has to offer.
Leave a Comment