Part VII: Deciding the storage (SSD/HDD)
Storage storage and more storage! No matter how much storage we have it is never going to be sufficient. This is especially true when we have a lot of games and videos stored in our PCs. The use of online streaming platforms and improved availability of good internet speeds have greatly reduced the need to store videos offline but games keep on increasing in size. The recent games like Assassin's Creed Valhalla requires more than 50 GB of storage space whereas Cyberpunk 2077 needs more than 70 GB.
Having said that, to make our PC work great does not need huge amounts of storage. We can have our system running great even with a 128 GB storage space. Windows 10 requires around 32 GB of storage space which leaves us with more than 90 GB of free space. Of course, some storage space will be used for other applications like web browser and document editing software. But we will still have at least 65-75 GB of free storage space. For photos and videos we can make use of external drives which also makes them portable between systems. Then we can keep only the games which we are currently playing installed on the disk. This would sufficiently get the job done, but I would recommend having at least 500 GB of storage space available as it gives a good balance of things that can be stored on PC and things that can be kept on portable disks.
Moving on to the type of storage we should be using, there are quite some options available here: HDD (Hard Disk Drives), SSD (Solid-State Drives) like SATA, M.2 with/without NVMe and PCIe Gen 3 and Gen 4. Before getting to the details of what advantages each one offers, I would suggest going for an SSD as primary storage drive i.e. the drive where we would be installing Windows. Just a simple upgrade from an HDD to SSD would give us a significant performance improvement even on our old systems. That in no way means that HDD is useless and to understand why let's check out what each one has to offer:
- Hard Disk Drives (HDD)
These are way cheaper than SSDs. A 500 GB HDD is available for just around Rs. 1,700 where as a 500 GB SSD would cost us more than Rs. 5,000. But these are significantly slower than SSD offering just around 100-120 MB/s read/write speed. Also HDDs are quite bulky especially the 3.5 inch drives. Despite the slower performance, it is great for storing large amounts of files like photos/videos backups due to it's low cost. - Hybrid Drives
As the name suggests, it is a combination of both SSD and HDD. It has some amount of flash storage like SSD and some amount of magnetic disk storage like HDD. Usually the amount of flash storage is very less up to 32 GB and the rest of the storage is HDD. It automatically manages what data needs to be stored where. The frequently used data is moved to the flash storage providing greater performance. The price is comparatively higher than HDD storage but is still quite cheaper than SSD. Although it provides a great balance between SSD and HDD, I prefer using a separate SSD for primary storage and a secondary HDD storage and manually managing which files to store where. - Solid-State Drives (SSD)
These are quite expensive but offer excellent performance. Apart from the great performance, these take up much less real estate as compared to an HDD. The average read/write speed of an SSD is around 600-5000 MB/s. It is just a rough approximate as read speeds are much higher than the write speeds. The Samsung 980 PRO has a claimed read speed of up to 7000 MB/s. The speed of an SSD greatly depends on the type of interface being used. Depending upon what the motherboard supports, we can choose from one of these interface types:
SATA: Serial Advanced Technology Attachment (SATA) offer speeds of up to 600 MB/s. They are widely supported as it uses the same connection as a regular HDD. This is one of the best performance upgrades that we can give to an old system.
M.2: This is one of the trickier ones as a motherboard having an M.2 slot may or may not support NVMe (Non-Volatile Memory Express) SSD. If the motherboard just supports the "B-Key" then you will have to settle for a SATA level speed SSD.
PCIe Gen3 NVMe offers speed of more than 3000 MB/s which is quite high as compared to SATA SSD.
PCIe Gen4 NVMe offers speed beyond 5000 MB/s but we will have to check our motherboard support to ensure compatibility with Gen4 else despite the SSD being Gen4 it would offer performance of Gen3.
As already mentioned, I went for a combination of an SSD as primary storage along with an HDD for secondary storage. I used an existing HDD from my old laptop and for SSD I shortlisted the following:
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Samsung 980 PRO 1TB
This is a top tier SSD from Samsung. It supports PCIe Gen4 with around 7000 MB/s read speed. It is available for around Rs. 24,999 on Amazon India. If you can afford this one, then you should surely consider going for this one. -
Seagate FireCuda 520 1TB
This is again a PCIe Gen4 SSD from Seagate with read speed of around 5000 MB/s. This too is a great choice as it usually available for Rs 19,999 on lightning deal on Amazon. -
Corsair Force Series MP600 1TB
Another PCIe Gen4 SSD in the list but this one is from Corsair. This one has received good ratings in online reviews. It has a read speed of about 4950 MB/s and is currently availabe at Rs. 19,999. -
Samsung 970 EVO Plus 1TB
This is PCIe Gen3 SSD from Samsung. It is usually priced at Rs. 15,999 but was available for just Rs. 10,999 during the Amazon Great Indian Sale. It has a read speed of around 3500 MB/s.
I was looking to go for a PCIe Gen4 SSD, but due to its unavailability or overpricing during the time of purchase I went for 970 Evo Plus 500 GB variant. I might upgrade to 980 PRO 1 TB Gen4 SSD from Samsung later and use the 970 as secondary storage. Currently I am using a WD 1TB HDD from my old laptop as a secondary storage.
As mentioned in my previous article, I have my build ready and I have edited this article on my new gaming rig. I will soon share the details and looks of my first ever gaming build.
Thanks for reading. Have a great day!
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