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Digital Goldilocks: How to Pick the Right Hard Drive Size for You

August 21, 2018 No Comments

Featured article by Catherine Hernandez, Independent Technology Author

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Deciding upon computer components can be challenging, especially if you’re not super tech savvy. But you don’t have to be because we are. Click here to learn how to pick the right hard drive size for you.

Did you know one hour of 4K video footage takes up 318 GB? File and storage requirements and capacities have changed drastically in the last ten years alone.

The 1 TB hard drive has been available for about a decade. A hard drive of that size would only hold three 4K videos.

So how do you choose the right hard drive size? You want to have enough for your current and future needs without overspending.

In this guide, we’ll help you determine not only the size hard drive right for you, but we’ll also go through other factors in the purchasing process. Keep reading to make an informed decision.

What Hard Drive Speed Is Right For You?

We’re actually going to start our discussion with the speed of hard drives since that’s what will largely determine your price point. Whether you’re looking for the power to store tons of information or an eco-friendly hard drive, the speed you need will help you decide what size to buy.

The speed of a hard drive is measured in revolutions per minute, or RPM. This measurement refers to the speed at which the platters of the drive will spin, dictated by the drive’s spindle.

The faster a drive’s rotational speed, the faster the computer. However, faster hard drives can also make more noise and produce more heat, necessitating the machine’s fans to engage and thus make even more noise.

We’ll come back to noise and heat later though. For now, let’s assume you can increase the RPM without having to worry about other factors.

When we say your computer will be faster with a hard drive with a higher RPM, we mean two things:

1. Your computer will take less time to seek and retrieve data.
2. Your computer will have shorter latency.

In computing, latency refers to the time it takes for a message to travel through a system.

When shopping for a new hard drive, the first thing you should think about is how fast you need the hard drive to be. Gamers, photographers, videographers, and people who consume a lot of digital content (particularly videos) will want faster hard drives.

We recommend seeking the highest-performing hard drive you can afford to allow for future needs.

Once you’ve determined the RPM, you can figure out your price point. Then it’s time to turn your eye toward hard drive sizes.

What Hard Drive Size Is Right For You?

Maybe you can get away with purchasing a 1 TB drive if you’re just going to store documents and some songs. After all, you can fit about 30,000 songs on 250 GB.

Or maybe you need something more powerful like a 5TB NAS hard drive. NAS, if you’re not familiar with it, stands for network-attached storage.

NAS drives connect one or more computers via a network that can be wired or wireless, rather than connecting directly to a computer. If you’re running a multi-user environment, this is a great option because it’s dedicated to storage and more efficient for multiple machines.

When considering the sizes of hard drives, you’ll want to keep a few things in mind.

The capacity for data storage should be your top concern. Below, you’ll see we’ve discussed in detail some recommended hard drive sizes depending on your usage and needs.

Remember that desktops tend to have larger hard drives because weight and heat are less of an issue. You don’t want a five-pound laptop that burns your legs.

The only time hard drive size impacts performance is when the drive fills up. This–and budgetary concerns–are the reason we suggested you choose your performance level first.

Certain operating systems have specific requirements of hard drive space. We’ll go over these in more detail below.

If You Use Windows…

Microsoft Windows NTFS (New Technology File System) requires at least 10% of your hard drive space in order to perform optimally. Despite that requirement, Windows often ends up using as much as 15% of your hard drive.

So if you buy a 500 GB hard drive, you can expect 75 GB to go to running your operating system. This leaves you with 425 GB in this example (we chose these numbers because they’re easier to imagine on the smaller side).

If You Use A Mac…

Before you Mac users start to smirk thinking you’ve escaped donating more than one-tenth of your hard drive space to your operating system, think again. Macs store files in an area known as other storage.

This is where your computer dumps the detritus of your daily computing. Think of it almost like the child of a temporary folder and your junk drawer at home.

The bad news is left unattended, the other storage will eat up a lot of space. The good news is you can now set your Mac up to keep other storage in check automatically.

Even if you do, it’s safest to presume your computer will gobble up some gigabytes.

If You’re A Gamer…

Gamers are wonderful. We love gamers.

But let’s face it, you lot use up so much hard drive space and power. If you’re a gamer, you should be looking at the best possible performance you can afford, and then buying as much storage your leftover budget will allow.

Look at it this way: If you only keep one MMORPG on your computer, you need at least a 2 TB hard drive.

Storing more than one large game like that? You’d better double the size of that drive.

If You’re A Couch Potato…

There’s nothing wrong with binging shows and movies. Who doesn’t love a rainy Saturday curled up on the couch?

But if you store a lot of media on your computer, small hard drives are only going to frustrate you. Songs, as we said earlier, don’t take up that much space.

But videos can. Now, it’s important to remember that there are multiple formats of videos, like:

* SD
* HD
* 4K

The typical HD movie of two hours will eat up as much as 8 GB on your hard drive. Multiply that by the number of movies (or half the number of shows) you want to store, and that should give you a good idea of what size hard drive to buy.

You’ll also want a high-performance drive, so like the gamers, look for those high RPMs first and then shop for the biggest drive you can afford–especially if you plan on increasing your movie collection.

If You’re A Photographer/Videographer…

Oh boy. We’re sorry to say you’re going to need the most space of any of our scenarios…especially if you shoot in 4K.

The good news is there are hard drives out there as large as 12 TB. If you shoot a lot of videos, larger is better.

If you’re just shooting photos, you could go middle of the road on size, but why paint yourself into a corner?

Outdated Considerations

Now that you know how to shop for speed and size, it’s time to make your shopping a little less confusing. There are some considerations that used to be important, but thanks to technological advances, they no longer matter except for in highly unique situations.

Forget about warranty length. Almost all hard drives come with a one-year warranty these days.

MTBF, which stands for mean time between failures, is also essentially pointless information. Most hard drives have an MTBF of 50 years, which actually means your hard drive should last you at least a few years.

MTTR, or mean time to repair, also doesn’t really factor into hard drive selection anymore. Most people don’t repair broken hard drives; they just replace them.

Shock rating isn’t important if you’re buying a desktop. If you’re buying a laptop, it might be important if you’re clumsy.

Don’t Forget To Check These…

Just as above we pointed out some additional considerations you can cross off your list, there are some that should definitely still be on it.

We mentioned noise and heat earlier. Both should be provided in the technical specifications.

Power consumption is important too, especially if you’re using or buying a laptop as this will determine how long you can go untethered to the wall. This will also be listed in tech specs, but here’s a truth universally acknowledged: Smaller drives consume less power.

Whether or not your hard drive has a large cache might be important to you. If you’re a media junkie, a gamer, or a videographer, you might want to go for high-performance of about 16 MB.

Mainstream caching performance comes in at 8 MB and your more inexpensive drives will offer 2 MB of buffer memory. This is often indicated by the letter at the end of the model number.

Finally, consider cost. We’ve mentioned it a few times in this guide already.

If you end up buying a drive you can’t afford, you might suffer buyer’s remorse. Spend too little and you might feel your new hard drive is inadequate.

Final Thoughts

Deciding what speed and hard drive size is right for you can seem like a daunting task. Stay the course, follow this guide, and you should end up with a product that meets your needs.

If you want to learn more about hard drives, check out our data and analytics articles. There’s a wealth of information to help you choose which drive is right for you.

 

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