Notebook Hard Drives Component Guide

While most notebooks sold today come with standard hard drives, an increasing number are available with solid state drives (SSDs). Standard, mechanical hard drives have moving parts that rotate a metal head over a magnetic surface. SSDs, on the other hand, store data on non-volatile NAND flash memory chips. Because they have no moving parts, SSDs are much faster, more durable, and incredibly power-efficient. But upgrading to SSD will make a dramatic difference in everyday tasks such as opening applications and documents, copying files, and booting. While hard drives aren’t the cornucopia of confusion that processors or RAM can be (and if you don’t think this is confusing, you’ve never worked retail), there are some crucial points to make.

Capacity

So how much space do your games, media files, and documents need? High-end games such as Crysis or World of Warcraft take between 10 and 15GB of disk space. However, simulation games such as The Sims 3 tend to use 5 to 7GB. So, with a 128GB drive (a common size for SSDs), for example, you can fit all of this with room to spare:

    * Operating System (depends on your operating system, including virtual memory, hibernation files, etc.)–20 to 30GB
    * Applications: Microsoft Office, Adobe Photoshop, etc.–10GB
    * Music: 5,000 Songs (approximately four minutes each)–20GB
    * Photos: 3,200 images–10GB
    * HD Video: 5.5 hours (approximately)–20GB
    * One Large Game–15GB
    * Total Memory Used–105GB

That said, the smallest notebook hard drive these days is 160GB, and it’s not difficult to find a low-cost notebook selling inside a 250 or 320GB unit.

SSD

Before upgrading your notebook’s hard drive to SSD, read reviews of any drive you may be considering. Look for a model with a good quality controller chip. If you’re buying a new notebook with an SSD built-in, you may not know the exact make and model of the SSD your notebook comes with, unless you have the notebook in front of you, or read a review from an objective source. Fortunately, most current notebook vendors use quality SSDs that have high-speed controllers from Intel, Samsung, or Toshiba.

Hard Drive

If you’re getting a notebook with a regular hard drive, speed is key. If given a choice, pick a 7,200 rpm model over 5,400 rpm, because the higher rotation speed means data transfers that are approximately 25 percent faster. Modern 7,200 rpm drives also have solid power-saving features, which means they won’t significantly impact your notebook’s battery life. Even if you don’t need all the storage space, we recommend a hard drive with at least 320GB.

External Drives

If you’re going to go external, you have two options: build your own drive, which can be cheaper (and oftentimes smaller), or buy a ready made external drive.

External drives have two ways of connecting to your notebook: USB 2.0 or FireWire (IEEE1394). Some drives offer just USB 2.0, some offer FireWire, and some offer both, and what you want is dependent on how you’re going to use the drive.

So, what if you want to assemble your own? Well, you can purchase an enclosure for 3.5 drives, but you can also get one for 2.5 drives. So if you’ve replaced the drive in your notebook, you can always buy an enclosure for that old one and use it as an external for added storage space. 3.5 externals always require an external power supply, but the 2.5 ones can often be powered off of two USB ports, so that’s food for thought if you even want your external drive mobile. But again, that’s a 2.5 drive, so you’re sacrificing speed and capacity.