Table of Contents
Introduction
The Problem this Article solves
Many people run their computers in a two disk configuration, commonly having a boot disk for the OS and important files (fast) and a data disk for music, photos, videos, and documents (slow). This article goes over the types of data disks and whether you need one
How this Article solves the problem
This Article is part of three community projects, all designed to simplify building DIY PCs
- ViCase: Indiegogo Project. A DIY Mini and All-IN-One Computer Case System
- V²Configurator: GitHub Project. The Configurator assists you when configuration your PC
- This Article Series: In depth Know How. In case you want to tune Ready Made Configurations of the V² Configurator
Is there an easier way?
Yes! Learning how to choose components for a DIY computer is time consuming. This is why we created a shortcut for you. Go to the V²Configurator and open the Wizard. Pick your Field of Application, say e.g. Photography and then pick the Main Use and the Configurator will custom build a complete computer for you, optimized for your Use Case and Performance class.
Comparison Table
Data Disk Comparison Table
| Disk Feature |
WD Blue |
WD Blue SSHD |
WD Black |
WD Red |
Samsung 850 EVO |
Samsung 850 EVO |
| Type |
HDD |
SSHD |
HDD |
HDD |
SSD |
mSATA |
| Size |
2.5” |
2.5” |
2.5” |
2.5” |
2.5” |
1/8th of 2.5” |
| Capacity |
250-3TB |
1TB |
160-750GB |
750-1TB |
120-2TB |
120-1TB |
| Interface |
SATA 3-6Gb/s |
SATA 6Gb/s |
SATA 6Gb/s |
SATA 6Gb/s |
SATA 6Gb/s |
SATA 6GB/s |
| Cache |
8MB,16MB |
8GB NAND |
16MB |
16MB |
256MB-2GB |
512MB-1GB |
| RPM |
5400 |
5400 / 400 Mb/s |
7200 |
5400 |
540MB/s |
540MB/s |
| Usage |
Work Hours |
Work Hours |
High |
24/7 |
24/7 |
24/7 |
List of Data Disk
Why we choose WD HD?
Western Digital is a highly regarded brand, with many high rated drives on sites such as Amazon and Newegg. Reliability is key, so choosing a drive with low failure rates is important.
Advice
Spinning Drive
While solid state drives are continuously dropping in price, spinning disk drives are still king in terms of price/GB. Whenever storage is a must, HDD are pefect for photos, videos, single player games, and setting up as a backup drive. If you have a RAID configuration with two HDDs, you can achieve similar speeds of a SSD, with more more storage at a lower cost.
Solid State Drive
As the years go by, prices in SSDs continue to drop and the storage capacities go up. It’s possible to buy 2TB SSDs, giving plenty of space at amazing speeds. Using a SSD for storage can be useful for professionals such as video editors, as lower export times can shave a lot off of a timeline. But for the majority of people, standard hard drives for data are fast enough.
Recommendations of Capacities
For the spinning disk drives, 1TB is a safe and cheap amount of space to hold all of your data. For most people, this is plenty of space for games, music, videos, and documents, making it ideal for the average user. For those that need more, a 2TB or 3TB drive is recommended to make space a non-issue.
For a solid state drive, 500GB would be the minimum for data due to 120GB or 250GB just filling too quickly. 1TB or 2TB SSD (possibly in RAID) would yield the most storage and fastest performance, but this is also the most expensive option.