If you need to store data on your computing device, you will inevitably need storage. Unlike RAM, storage is persistent, meaning that it lasts even when your computer is rebooted. The two most common types of storage are hard disk drives (HDDs) and solid state drives (SSDs). SSDs are generally preferred for gaming, although both types of storage can be installed at the same time.
Drives perform two main tasks: reading and writing data. Reading data is accessing information from a storage device, while writing data is saving information from your computer onto a storage device. Product listings for storage devices typically list a drive’s read and write times, and SSDs are typically much faster but have less capacity than hard drives.
With hard drives, data is physically written onto the disk using magnets. With SSDs, data is written to NAND flash chips using electrons stored in floating gate transistors. DRAM is volatile storage used mostly in RAM, while NAND is nonvolatile, permanent storage used in hard drives and SSDs. However, many SSDs contain a small DRAM cache, which stores metadata and helps the drive communicate with the CPU. Drives without DRAM instead utilize DRAM from the host server. For personal computers, SSDs with a DRAM cache are faster and generally better quality than those without. Hard drives also contain a cache which performs a similar function. As with SSDs, the more cache, the better. However, storage capacity and speed is more important for most people.
While the mumbo-jumbo of internal storage components may not be important to you, storage capacity, usually measured in gigabytes (GB) and terabytes (TB), certainly is. In my opinion, the sweet spot is a 2TB hard drive for large data files and a 1TB SSD for the operating system and games. This is because a Windows 11 installation takes up about 27GB, and games can take up as much as 100GB. Because storage prices have decreased substantially in recent years, it might make sense to purchase a single 2TB SSD instead.
Hard drives and SSDs have various specifications and form factors that you should also consider. Modern hard drives are 5400 rotations per minute (RPM) or 7200RPM. Most experts agree that you should only consider 7200RPM hard drives in a new system, as the difference in data transfer speed is noticeable. The two main SSD form factors are SATA (2.5”) and M.2. SATA SSDs are cheaper but less performant, while M.2 SSDs are generally more expensive and faster. SATA SSDs are mounted in your PC case and plugged into the power supply with a SATA cable, while M.2 SSDs are mounted directly on the motherboard, usually below the GPU. M.2 SSDs also vary drastically in price based on their PCI-e bus standard. PCI-e Gen5 SSDs are fastest but are very expensive. Most gamers opt for PCI-e 4.0 or 3.0 M.2 SSDs, which are both much faster than hard drives and will perform well in games. SATA SSDs max out around 600MB/s, PCI-e 3.0 drives max out around 3500MB/s, PCI-e 4.0 SSDs max out around 7000MB/s, and PCI-e 5.0 SSDs max out around 14000MB/s. The gap between each spec may seem huge, but the difference is much greater between a PCI-e 3.0 SSD and a hard drive, which maxes out around 160MB/s. You may also see some M.2 SSDs labeled as NVMe, which means a drive uses a transfer protocol that decreases latency when accessing flash storage from the PCI-e bus. Luckily, almost every modern M.2 SSD is NVMe, but it’s still worthwhile to check. SSDs have another advantage: they have no moving parts and are therefore more reliable than hard drives.
Another option that doesn’t get a lot of attention is solid-state hybrid drives (SSHDs). As the name suggests, SSHDs are a hybrid between hard drives and SSDs. Specifically, they combine the magnetic components of hard drives with the NAND flash memory of SSDs to provide a large capacity at an affordable price. In terms of form factor, they resemble traditional hard drives. However, for data not prioritized by the NAND flash, read and write speeds will be equivalent to a standard hard drive. And with storage being so cheap nowadays, I don’t think SSHDs are a competitive option in the market at the moment, and I would not recommend them.
Although much of this discussion is focused on internal drives, there are also external hard drives and SSDs. Many utilize external drives to back up their data in case a drive fails. Because external storage is slower than internal storage, it should be used for files accessed less frequently by applications running on your computer. It is extremely important to back up your computer’s important data, and an external hard drive or SSD is the most common way to do so.
As always with my beginner’s guides to PC parts, I will conclude with some actual storage recommendations. If you want a budget hard drive/SSD combo for maximal capacity with some SSD speed, consider the Patriot P300 512GB PCI-e 3.0 NVMe SSD and the Seagate BarraCuda 1TB 7200RPM hard drive for a total of $65. However, the P300 does not have DRAM cache, so you may want to consider spending a little more and searching PCPartPicker with the cache filter. For a mid-range storage solution, consider the AORUS Gen4 7300 1TB NVMe SSD (1024MB cache) and the Western Digital Blue 2TB 7200RPM hard drive for a total of $132. If you’re an absolute baller but want something reasonable, consider the Corsair MP700 2TB PCI-e 5.0 NVMe SSD for $249. It’s important to note that PCI-e Gen5 SSDs are only compatible with select AMD AM5 and Intel LGA 1700 motherboards. Generally reputable brands include Western Digital, Seagate, and Samsung for hard drives, and additionally Sabrent, Kingston, Crucial, Intel, ADATA, Silicon Power, Corsair, Team Group, Inland, PNY, Gigabyte, Patriot, SK hynix, Asus, Biostar, G.Skill, and Zotac for SSDs. As always, I hope this guide helps you on your PC building journey!
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