Beginners 101 – 5 Tips When Purchasing SSD and HDD Storage

Are you looking to build a new PC and are unsure what storage to purchase? Perhaps you are looking at ways you can easily increase the performance of your current gaming PC but are not sure what the best options are? With so many options available it can be tricky to know what the best SSD to get is or how mush SSD do I need. Well, we thought we could help make the purchase process a little bit easier for you by helping guide you on your purchase choices.

This beginners 101 will provide you with 5 tips when purchasing SSD and HDD storage that will help you with your storage choices.

How much storage space do I need?

The first thing that you need to determine when buying SSD and HDD storage is how much storage space do you really need. It is simple to say that more storage space is better, which is technically true, but it can also become a costly endeavor, especially if it is not really needed.

Take some time to have a think about what you use your computer for on a daily basis. 

Do you download and save lots of media files? 

Do you play lots of video games and like to have them all installed at the same time?

Do you do any content creation work on your computer?

These are questions that will help you understand how much space that you really need. If you are someone that answers yes to any of the questions above then you are likely going to need a decent amount of storage space available. With the release of newer games, some games see install sizes of up to 100GB for a single game. If you were to install a few of those titles you can see how space could become an issue.

Thankfully hard drive storage is more affordable then ever and you can pickup large capacity drives at reasonable prices now. If you do require a decent amount of storage, we would recommend a minimum of 2TB.

If you do not require too much storage space to be available, installing an SSD is always a fantastic option. Although SSDs don’t offer the same capacity options as HDDs do, they do provide a big performance boost to any PC.

How many hard drives should I buy?

With the ability to install a large number of storage drives into a computer nowadays, it can be a bit daunting sometimes to know how many drives should you actually install.

For those that are looking to setup PCs purely for the purpose of storage, they are able to install large amount of high capacity drives in their PC and jobs done. But what kind of storage setup should a typical gamer go for?

One of the most popular recommendations is to install one faster drive like the AORUS NVMe Gen4 that is used for your operating system and applications and install a secondary drive for all of your gaming. Install your PC games to the secondary drive and your good to go. The benefit of this is that not only does it give you more options on what kind of drive to install for your games and OS but should you ever need to re-install your operating system you can do so without touching your game installs and game saves.

Get the right HDD for the job

Ensure that you purchase the best kind of drive for its intended purposes. There are a number of different kinds of storage drives available, each that is designed for specific purposes.

If you are looking for storage for gaming then you are best of looking at purchasing an SSD such as the Gigabyte UD PRO or hybrid drives that are intended to increase read and write speeds. This will give you faster load times into games and an overall better gaming experience.

Perhaps you are running at NAS (Network Attached Storage) at home and you are wanting to expand the amount of storage that is available. For this you are best of opting for NAS specific hard drives as they are designed to offer great data protection for long term storage.

Do you want some extra space for file storage? If so your best bet is to install some 7200rpm drives with higher capacities for your storage needs.

Do you have the need for speed? Optimise your gaming PCs performance

You don’t just need to be building a brand-new gaming rig in order to see better PC performance. If you are happy with your current PC but are looking to improve performance a bit then there is a very simple option for you. Install an SSD.

By simply installing an SSD into your computer and running your operating system of it you will see substantially faster boot times and snappier performance when using your PC. If you want even more performance drop in an M.2 NVMe drive and you will feel like you are gaming on a brand new gaming rig.

By running your operating system, programs and games you will experience faster loading times in games and all round better performance. Not only that but SSD storage runs much more quieter than HDDs do.

You don’t need to spend a fortune to improve your gaming PC, sometimes it really is as simple as install an SSD.

Determine what storage options your motherboard support

Lastly, the most important thing to do before purchasing any storage is to consult your motherboard manual (or manufacturer product page) and confirm exactly what storage options your motherboard supports.

There is nothing worse then spending your card earn cash on something just to find out that you can’t actually use.

Not all motherboards support M.2 SSD storage and not all motherboards allow you to install the same number of storage devices so you will want to look for a board that offers a range of storage options such as the B450 AORUS ELITE.

Always double check what you can and cannot do with your motherboard in order to ensure that you make the right purchase choices.

Learn More：

－Beginners 101 – What is a Motherboard

－Beginners 101 – What is a Graphics Card

－Beginners 101 – What is RAM

－Beginners 101 – What is SSD and HDD Storage

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