How to choose a hard drive for a computer or laptop

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Hi all! Zero is with you, and today I will tell you how to choose a hard drive for your PC, and also give examples of high-quality models. I’ll immediately make a reservation that in 2022 it is irrational to consider the HDD as the main drive for the system, programs and modern games - all this should be installed on an SSD, so the system will work much faster. HDD is now a file storage for large data that does not require particularly fast access. Such data includes, for example, videos, music and images - if you are collecting a personal media collection, then a hard drive will definitely come in handy.

Personally, I store on my HDD the best films, videos, TV series and anime I have watched, music, pictures, old games, and also transfer saves from completed projects there from the SSD if they weigh a lot and waste space on the solid-state drive. I keep one of the backups of important data on my hard drive - the others are located remotely.

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Form factor

There are few options here - 2.5 and 3.5 inches. Laptop owners simply have no choice: as a rule, only 2.5-inch hard drives are suitable for laptops. Theoretically, you can install any one in a PC, but again, most often these hard drives are 3.5 inches. If only because, per unit of memory, they are usually cheaper than 2.5-inch ones.

• Accessories

  How to choose an SSD drive for a computer or laptop

Rating of the best hard drives for a computer

Capacity

Perhaps this is the parameter that is worth starting from. 500 GB and 1 TB drives are suitable mainly for office computers. If you are an active user, regularly download movies and install games, we would recommend paying attention to models with a capacity of 2 TB or more. Why not 1? It's simple: some modern AAA games take up 200-250 GB. 4 games and the hard drive is full.

In the current realities, the trend of increasing the occupied space on the hard drive will not disappear anywhere and will only accelerate its pace in the coming years. Graphics are getting better, resolutions are getting higher, game worlds are getting bigger. Hence it turns out that a terabyte is eaten up by literally a couple of projects.

If we are talking about storing data (for example, backups or archives of professional photos and videos), take a HDD of at least 4 TB. Options from 6 TB are still expensive (in terms of 1 TB of memory).

• Adviсe

  Putting your home photo archive in order: how to organize photos?

Calculate the required volume

Disks from 500 GB to 20 TB are available for sale. Obviously, the more space the better. However, there are several important points here. Firstly, with an increase in volume, the price increases significantly. Secondly, all HDDs last on average 5–7 years, and if you choose a disk that is too large for growth, it may break before it is completely full.

For a standard office computer, 500 GB is enough. For a home PC that is used for gaming, it is advisable to take a 1-2 TB disk. If you plan to store a large number of media files, then you need to proceed from their volume.

Also, do not forget that the actual capacity of the disk will be less than declared. We are accustomed to the decimal number system, and manufacturers, trying to adhere to it, and also based on their marketing goals, indicate the volume of drives on the basis that 1 terabyte is equal to 1,000 gigabytes. But computers use the binary number system, and in 1 TB there are not a thousand, but 1,024 GB. This difference must be taken into account when choosing.

Here is how much free space will be available on disks of various sizes after formatting:

• 500 GB → 465.66 GB;
• 750 GB → 698.49 GB;
• 1 TB → 931.32 GB;
• 2 TB → 1,861.64 GB;
• 3 TB → 2,793.96 GB;
• 4 TB → 3,725.29 GB;
• 8 TB → 7,450.58 GB.

Spindle speed

This is the main parameter that has the greatest impact on the speed performance of the hard drive. Today there are two main types of HDD: with a spindle speed of 5400 and 7200 rpm. There are models with up to 15,000 rpm, but they are very expensive and rare.

We recommend 7200 rpm drives because they are on average 1.5 times faster than 5400 rpm. However, 5400 rpm is better suited for a laptop because it generates less heat and vibration. In addition, HDDs with low speeds are considered more reliable due to less wear and tear on components.

Decide on the drive type

Everything here is extremely simple: hard drives can be internal or external.

Internal ones are installed in the PC system unit or laptop case. They are connected to the motherboard with special wires and secured with screws in the slots provided for this. Internal HDDs cannot be quickly removed and connected to another computer.

External ones have their own housing and are connected to one of the PC ports using a cable (usually USB, but there are other options). In most cases, such drives receive power through the same cable through which data is transmitted, but sometimes a separate wire with a network adapter is used for this. External hard drives can be carried with you and easily connected to any other computers and laptops with the appropriate port.

Why are HDDs better suited for static storage of information?

Magnetic hard drives are reliable and efficient storage media that excel at “passively” storing large amounts of information. In addition, the user always has the opportunity to further protect himself from sudden data deletion using the “Disk Space” . You can find out how to do this in the article “How to create a disk space or mirror volume in Windows 8 or 10.”

To this should be added the ability to restore data using a special utility RS Partition Recovery, which can, in cases of accidental deletion , formatting , destruction by viruses , damage during changes to the file system and logical structure of the drive, etc.

RS Partition Recovery is an advanced complex for recovering data from flash drives , HDD drives , SSD drives and memory cards of any type .

With just one information recovery utility, you can quickly recover lost photos , videos , documents and other valuable information.

The functionality of RS Partition Recovery includes a quick scan to find recently deleted information, as well as a full disk analysis - a special function to find all possible data for recovery. This allows you to quickly recover data or scan the entire disk to recover information lost up to several months ago. To familiarize yourself with all the features and capabilities of RS Partition Recovery , we recommend visiting the official page of the program.

Cache size.

Cache memory (buffer) is intermediate memory. It is designed to increase the speed of the hard drive while accessing its data. The “cache” stores responses to the most frequent system and application requests. And of course, there is no need to constantly read information from the disk itself. this increases the efficiency of the HDD and the system as a whole. The cache size in modern hard drives usually varies from 8 to 64 MB.

Check the connection interface

From left to right: SATA, USB‑A, USB‑C.
Illustration: Artem Kozoriz / Lifehacker There are several current data transfer standards and connectors for connecting disks to a computer. For internal drives, these are SATA II (up to 3 Gbit/s) and SATA III (up to 6 Gbit/s). For external - traditional USB‑A (up to 480 Mbit/s via USB 2.0 and up to 5 Gbit/s via USB 3.0), as well as more modern USB‑C (up to 10 Gbit/s via USB 3.1 and up to 20 Gbit/s via USB 3.2).

For higher performance, it is advisable to purchase a HDD with the fastest interface that is supported by the PC or laptop motherboard. That is, SATA III in the case of an internal drive or USB-A with support for USB 3.0 - external. If you have a laptop with a USB-C port, it is better to choose a hard drive that connects with the same cable. This will help avoid fiddling with adapters.

Noise level

Many manufacturers indicate this parameter in the characteristics of their models, but it is approximately the same for all brands. A modern hard drive works quite quietly, but we are talking about new devices.

Over time, the mechanisms become unbalanced, resulting in noises that can be quite intense and irritating to users or other family members. A sign such as the appearance of noise can be perceived as a harbinger of an imminent failure of the computer’s hard drive.

Comparison of SSD and HDD drives in real use conditions

The purpose of the review and comparison of HDD and SSD drives:

In this article we will find out how and to what extent the SSD affects performance in real-life conditions of use.
If you have long wanted to see the real performance of SSDs in comparison with conventional HDDs, or if you were thinking about migrating your system to an SSD, but didn’t know if it was worth it, this article is for you! There is little point in testing the disk under ideal conditions, because... This doesn’t happen in real life, so I deliberately consider tests using examples from real life, when the disk is filled with thousands of files, games, cache files of browsers and video processing programs, etc. So, grab some popcorn, sit back, and let's get down to business.

What is the problem with HDD drives?

The problem is that the regular HDD drives that we still use in computers have not changed since the 1990xwiki, when it was first decided to make HDDs operating at 4300 rpm and 5400 rpm (revolutions per minute). It was 2016 -
20-25 years later, we still have the same 5400 rpm drives running at 60-90 MB/s, but user needs have long since changed, we now work with huge projects and large numbers of files in multitasking mode, requiring high bandwidth ability and responsiveness of the disk, even if several other programs are already running in the background. Since 2001, some manufacturers began to produce consumer segment disks operating at 7200 rpm, instead of 5400, but this did not change anything, the increase from 90 MB/s to 120 MB/s (33% - 5400-7200) is still does not give a significant effect.

Tests | synthetic (potential disk speeds)

Below is a synthetic test comparing the performance of the most important aspect - disk operation with small data blocks (in particular 4 KB): During operations - read (read)

• HDD is 94 times
  (0.68 MB/s vs. 63.6 MB/s) compared to SSD
• HDD is 53 times
  (0.36 MB/s versus 19 MB/s) compared to SSD

During operations - recording (write)

• HDD is 178 times
  (0.78 MB/s versus 139 MB/s) compared to SSD
• HDD is 86 times
  (0.64 MB/s vs. 55 MB/s) compared to SSD

Why are we mainly interested in the result of disk operation with small blocks of data? The thing is, whether you open a browser, or import a project consisting of hundreds of files into a program like Unreal Engine, no matter what you do, in all such cases, the computer is processing a huge number of small blocks of data (mostly reading , so read speed is usually more important than write speed) Sequential speed (“Seq Q32T1” and “Seq” in the screenshot above) is important when writing/reading large files (MB or GB), which happens less often and does not affect system responsiveness , to the same extent as working with thousands of small blocks.

Why are Apple computers so much more responsive than regular PCs and “never” slow down?

In the computer world, there is an opinion that the whole problem is in the operating system - Mac OSX on Apple computers is “optimized”, “never slows down”, “there are no blue screens of system failure”
Maybe this is because: Apple computers (not counting the cheapest configuration):

have all the same components, except one - m.2 SSD disk / proprietary analogues: - Operating at speeds (700 - 1100 MB / s) via NVMe, being able to handle 65,000 wait threads executing 65,000 commands each - Having loss prevention systems data, overheating protection systems that help prevent errors and freezes when working with several GB of data consisting mainly of small blocks, in multitasking mode, etc.
and so on. While the experience of working with Windows PC
was formed while working with computers that have: - A regular HDD 5400 rpm (noisy and vibrating during operation, due to the presence of moving parts) capable of processing 1 wait thread executing 32 commands - Working on speed (60 - 110 MB/s) - Constantly forcing all users to observe the status - “Not responding”, observe the mockingly slow response when working in multitasking mode, not only with small, but also with relatively large blocks of data.

Leaving all the other components of the computer in place, swap the disks, putting the 5400 rpm HDD on the Apple, and the m.2 SSD on the Windows PC, and it turns out that the disk is really the most important (for speed and responsiveness) part of the computer, because a regular HDD drive is very slow, and forces the entire system to wait until it finishes processing all queues of tasks from programs and the OS, which slows down greatly when working in multitasking mode, having, in addition, applications doing work in the background, which can be quite a lot - from auto-updating project dependencies to tasks assigned for processing by the user himself.

Now, let's move on to the tests!

Test configuration | Real-life tests

All test results were obtained on a laptop with these components: OS:
Windows 10
CPU:
i7 3610qm
RAM:
12 GB Test subjects:
HDD:
Toshiba MQ01ABF050 |
465 GB (SATA) SSD:
Kingston HyperX Fury | 120 GB (SATA)

| Updating clean Windows 7 to Windows 10

SSD
Total time: ~9 minutes - 188% faster (2.9 times)
HDD
Total time: ~26 minutes

The first 4 lines are the Windows 10 update process. The last line is a test to make sure that the update process is complete and the PC is ready to go.

| Windows 10 startup time

SSD
Windows startup time and tray programs: 0:16 |
Total time: 0:23 - 217% faster (3.17 times) HDD
Windows startup time and tray programs: 0:48 | Total time: 1:13 PDF opened immediately after the desktop appeared. The countdown ended after loading programs in the tray and completely opening the PDF file.

| Application launch time

SSD
Application startup time |
Total time: 1:44 - 274% faster (3.74 times) HDD
Application launch time | Total time: 6:29

| Application task execution time

SSD
Perform tasks in applications |
Total time: 2:29 - 175% faster (2.75 times) HDD
Performing tasks in applications | Total time: 6:50

results

Judging by the tests and sensations, our experimental HyperX Fury SSD outperformed the HDD in all respects in 100% of cases, solving the headache in all areas requiring high system responsiveness, such as game creation, video / audio processing, particle simulation, post-processing, work with hundreds of GB of data or thousands of OpenEXR.
After switching to an SSD drive, there are no longer noticeable problems with stuttering, whether it is a processing speed issue in AE, due to the fact that your sublime text downloads dependency updates using 100% of the disk at the time, or stopping work from -due to the fact that BVH is being calculated in the background before rendering in blender, or while Maya, for several hours, creates alembic cache files, preventing you from even accessing the Internet without freezing. Not noticeably more and no waiting until Audacity hangs, after reducing the audio track, every 2 minutes and no waiting until all HDR or EXR in the folder are loaded each time for 1-3 minutes (!). You no longer have to stop one application in order to speed up the responsiveness of others, because... it loaded the disk at 100%. You don’t have to wait a few seconds after each action in Unreal Engine, for any aspect of the work, from importing files to applying and testing assets. Not to mention the speed of rebooting the system after updates, which happens in seconds instead of minutes, and opening applications, which now happens “relatively” instantly.

Etc., etc., if you have encountered all this, you understand me well and there is no point in continuing to write resolved problems, but if you do not understand what we are talking about, most likely you will get bored

Manufacturer

We have already noted that there are few well-known hard drive manufacturers. Initially, two companies competed for the palm, Seagate and Western Digital. The struggle went on with varying degrees of success, and later other brands joined in - Toshiba, Samsung, Hitachi.

Opinions vary about the quality of the Big Five's products. Many people believe that the most reliable drives are made by WD and Hitachi. Typically, statistical data on the frequency of breakdowns is provided by companies involved in HDD repairs, so it is difficult to judge the great objectivity of such data. Seagate also produces good products, but the most unreliable, according to the computer community, are Samsung drives.

In short, the correct choice of HDD requires taking into account all the listed criteria, and not just the brand or volume. An integrated approach to purchasing a hard drive is justified in most cases.