Although hard drives have long passed their peak, there is still a large demand for them, as storage, but also as a system drive. The fact is that SSDs offer faster performance, and flash drives more practicality, but hard drives still offer the most storage space, for the lowest cost. Thanks to that fact, they are still very present in the IT industry, and gaming as our major point of interest. Even though they have been long gone from the spotlight, they can still produce some decent performance that will satisfy most gamers. Therefore, Read More about Gaming Hard Drives and its purposes is still a welcome move.
What about the cost?
Choosing between a single hard drive or solid-state drive is not the only option. It’s possible to use a combination of internal and external drives in different configurations of hard drives and solid-state drives to work with both your budget and your need for fast load times. Look for the biggest, fastest drive possible and still stay within your budget. The Crucial System Scanner or Advisor Tool™ will give you a list of drives that are compatible with your system so you can choose the SSD that fits your budget. You can choose the SSD that meets your budget.
Which form factor?
Solid-state drives come in several form factors. What you choose depends on what your system specifications are. Use the Crucial® System Scanner or Advisor™ tool to determine which drives are compatible with your system. Find out which SSD form factor best suits you.
- Seagate BarraCuda
It’s almost impossible to talk about hard drives without mentioning Seagate’s BarraCuda lineup – it’s a force to be reckoned with. And, it’s not hard to see why Seagate Barracuda drives offer a great gigabyte-per-dollar ratio and speed benefits to top it off. The 2TB model hits a sweet spot by balancing high performance and affordability. Since this drive combines 7,200rpm platters and high-density data, computers outfitted with this drive will be able to read data extraordinarily fast.
- Toshiba X300
Even if its laptops aren’t as popular as they used to be, Toshiba is still a huge name in computing and has a lot to offer. When it comes to the best hard drives, the Toshiba X300 is a high-capacity, high-performance champ worth taking a look at. The X300 drives boast great gigabyte-to-dollar value without sacrificing on performance. These drives all spin at 7,200 rpm and include 128MB of cache for higher speeds. The only downside is the warranty only lasts two years, which feels short for a drive meant to store so much important data.
- Western Digital Black SN750 1TB NVMe SSD
If you’re interested in the new M.2 style SSDs, but want something a little more affordable, the WD_Black SN750 is a great runner-up. It’s available in capacities ranging from as little as 250GB to 2TB to give you all the room you need to store your favorite games, programs, and files. It’s optimized for 4K gaming and video production, so it’s able to work as hard as it plays. The SN750 boasts speeds up to 6 times faster than their SATA SSD counterparts from Western Digital. It can give you file transfer speeds up to 3,430MB/s for much faster file migration between computers or internal hard drives.
You’ll also get read and write speeds up to 3,470 and 3,000MB/s, respectively, for almost instantaneous saving and access to your files. With WD 3D NAND technology, the SN750 allows for much denser storage in an incredibly small format; this gives you more room inside your desktop tower or laptop for things like liquid cooling setups, larger GPUs, and secondary hard drives. The SN750 has a finned heat sink attachment available that is designed for optimal heat dissipation to keep the SSD running smoothly even under intense load. The WD Dashboard app lets you customize performance points, enable the dedicated game mode, and tweak settings to keep your SSD in top condition and to get the most out of your storage device.