How to select a good storage drive

Choosing the correct type of storage device is incredibly important.

Start by asking yourself "Why do I need more storage?" Of course, it may sound dumb asking yourself why you need more storage when you can't use your computer because it has critically low space, but you should know what data you will be storing on the drive.

If you plan on using your new drive for tasks like gaming, video editing, etc., you should not use a hard disk, even though it is sometimes half the price of an SSD. Hard disks, being a mechanical marvel, suffer from mechanical issues and hence, are more susceptible to data loss. You may argue that data recovery is simpler, but why take the risk if SSDs almost never suffer from data loss. After all, who would want to lose the videos that they spent so much time to edit, or worse, their game progress. There is an exception to this, though. If you have a large game that you play once in a while that also has automatic cloud backup (GTA V for my case), you can safely store it on a hard disk with no worry in the world. Or if your game save files are saved in a separate folder, you can store the game files in your documents folder but store the game on a hard disk.

Other than this, Hard disks have practical applications for surveillance systems. Hard disks should not be used on their full speed for extended time periods, as after all they are mechanical, hence surveillance files are a good candidate for surveillance drives. Some manufacturers provide free data recovery while other provide a guaranteed number of hours, making hard disks a budget friendly and a mostly safe candidate for surveillance data storage.

Meanwhile SSDs are faster, more compact and with no moving parts, but at the cost of... cost, of course.