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How Do You Select a Good Hard Disk? 

When you are looking for a new hard drive, besides ensuring that you buy the drive from a reputable store such as Boost Hardware, you should pay attention to plenty of other factors. These factors include: 

The device you want to install the hard disk

Your hard drive is used as storage by a wide variety of devices. Think about your gaming console, NAS, laptop, and desktop computer. Because each gadget serves a distinct function, they place varying demands on your hard disk. Let’s look at the different devices and the hard disks you need:

NAS  

A NAS’s disk operates around the clock, frequently in a configuration. An inappropriate disc can vibrate, heat up from prolonged use, and use a lot of electricity. 

NAS drives are designed to operate day and night, use less energy, and contain vibration-reduction technologies. 

PC, laptop, or gaming console  

Chances are that you frequently switch between using your desktop, laptop, and console, requesting different amounts of disk space based on the application or game that’s open at the time. 

These gadgets’ internal hard drives have been altered to handle this sporadic use. They use less energy, emit less heat, and may change the speed at which they read and write. 

Demanding users like PC gamers or creative professionals can operate with a dual-core CPU or even a bigger cache for faster processing.  

Security storage

Do you use NAS to store your IP camera footage? If so, you should choose a hard disk designed to store surveillance photos. 

Because video images on these CDs are frequently of high definition, they have a heavy workload. This indicates that they handle massive streams of video data with ease. 

They also have technology that stops writing errors from causing video files to lose seconds of content. They also vibrate less and use less energy.

Type of hard drive

You can increase the internal storage on your device in three ways. A solid-state drive (SSD), a solid-state hybrid drive (SSHD), or a hard disk drive (HDD). 

As long as you select the appropriate sizes and connectors, you can connect the drives to any type of equipment. 

HDD 

A rectangular frame surrounds a flat metal cylinder that serves as an HDD. Like an antique record player, a writing and reading head continuously describes and reads this cylinder. 

An HDD’s benefit is that it costs less per gigabyte than an SSD. The downside is that it isn’t fast.

SSHD

An HDD and an SSD are combined to form an SSHD. The SSD cache on the drive is built-in and has an 8 GB storage limit. The purpose of this cache memory is to speed up the startup and operation of your operating system. 

Your files, including pictures, movies, and text documents, are kept on the HDD. You get the best of both worlds with this. 

You should pick an SSHD if you always want a fast hard disk. 

SSD 

Unlike an HDD, an SSD has no moving parts. Just like with tiny SD cards, your files are kept on chips. As a result, an SSD is significantly faster, more durable, quieter, and more cost-effective than an HDD. 

Although SSDs operate at different speeds, they can outperform HDDs by up to ten times. Your machine will boot up in roughly 15 seconds, thanks to this. 

While this is the case, you should note that an SSD costs more than an HDD when it comes to storage capacity per GB. 

Storage capacity

Storage capacity is arguably the most crucial factor when purchasing a storage drive. Purchasing a fast device with encryption and remote access is useless if it cannot hold all your data. 

At the same time, you don’t want to overpay for a drive that you’ll never even partially fill.

What is the ideal drive size? That is up to you.

Would you rather have all your stuff—including text documents, gaming files, HD videos, and vacation pictures—stored on a single disk? Or are you an intense video gamer, picky moviegoer, or creative professional? 

If you prefer watching or editing 4K and HD movies, playing high-definition games, or working on lengthy documents, you want a hard disk with a lot of storage. 

On the other hand, if you store just a few files on your computer, you do not need a lot of storage. 

While this is the case, you should note that files grow in size over time and need a larger amount of storage. This means that even if you don’t store a lot of data, always have a slightly larger device to accommodate the extra files that might pile up later. 

Speed

Because HDDs and SSDs use distinct technology, the speed varies. Remember that the speed at which your internal hard disk operates is also influenced by the cables and connectors you employ.  

The HDD’s speed  

An HDD’s disk rotates constantly, which allows data to be read and described. The term for this is revolutions per minute (rpm). Three different rpm speeds are available: variable rpm, 5400 rpm, and 7200 rpm.

An SSD’s speed  

An SSD is far faster than an HDD since it lacks mechanical components. The manufacturer measures an SSD’s read and write speeds in megabytes per second. 

On average, an SSD reads 500MB per second. As a result, a 10 GB HD movie with great resolution transfers in 20 seconds.

Memory cache significantly affects speed. 

Cache memory is the area on the hard drive where files are momentarily stored. Megabytes (MBs) are used to express this. 

File loading on drives with larger memory banks (MB cache) is smoother. The benefit of having more cache becomes apparent when working with many files simultaneously, such as creating an album in photo software.

Parting shot

These are some factors you should consider when buying your hard drive. Besides the hard drive, you should note that you might need additional accessories such as SATA cables, enclosures, mounting brackets, and docking stations. 

If you need these to install your hard disk, ensure you get the right ones.