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Guide

SSD or HDD? How to choose a drive for a PC or laptop

Last updated October 22, 2026

The short answer

System and programs always on an SSD. A hard disk (HDD) makes sense today only as large, cheap storage for backups, films and archives – and even there a second SSD often replaces it. The responsiveness gap between an SSD and an HDD is the biggest performance jump money buys in a computer.

NVMe or SATA?

Both are SSDs; they differ in interface and speed:

SATA SSD NVMe SSD (M.2, PCIe)
Sequential speed up to ~550 MB/s 3,500–7,000+ MB/s by PCIe generation
Form 2.5" box with cables, or M.2 M.2 card straight on the board
Where it makes sense older computers without an M.2 slot, a second drive the system drive in every new PC and laptop
Price per TB similar similar – the gap has closed

For everyday work and games you will barely notice the difference between SATA and NVMe – boot and game loading differ by seconds. NVMe decides in copying large files, video editing, databases and many small files. Because the price is the same, we recommend NVMe for a new computer.

PCIe 3.0, 4.0 or 5.0? A drive runs at the speed of the slot it sits in; a PCIe 4.0 drive in a PCIe 3.0 board works, only slower. PCIe 5.0 drives are dearer, run hot and bring nothing measurable to games – they make sense for professional video work.

What capacity

  • Office, school, web: 500 GB is enough, 1 TB is comfortable.
  • Games: 1 TB minimum – one current game takes 100–150 GB. 2 TB for a library you do not want to prune.
  • Photo and video: a 2 TB system drive plus storage for footage; for video count tens of GB per hour of recording.
  • Laptop: as much as you can, replacement is harder than in a PC; 1 TB is a sensible base today.

Read the capacity in the product name – we filter by it, so the "Capacity" filter on the Internal SSDs shelf matches.

How to recognise a reliable drive

  • TBW (Terabytes Written) – how much data the maker guarantees over the warranty. 600 TBW on a 1 TB drive means 600 TB of writes; a typical user writes 10–20 TB a year.
  • Warranty – 5 years on quality drives, 3 on cheaper ones.
  • DRAM cache – DRAM-less drives are cheaper and fine as the system drive of an everyday computer; for heavy writing choose a drive with DRAM.
  • Heat – fast NVMe drives need a heatsink; most motherboards have one on the M.2 slot.

Where an HDD belongs

A hard disk wins on price per terabyte from 4 TB up: backups, a film library, photo archive, NAS. Put it in a computer as a second drive next to the SSD, never as the system drive. In a laptop it has no place today – slow, noisy and sensitive to knocks. Shelf: Internal hard disks.

Recommendations in brief

  1. New PC or laptop: 1 TB NVMe SSD (2 TB for games and creation).
  2. Reviving an older machine without M.2: SATA SSD in place of the original HDD – the cheapest speed-up there is.
  3. Large storage: HDD from 4 TB as a second drive or in a NAS.
  4. In the configurator we make sure the system drive is an SSD and the board has the slot the drive needs.

Frequently asked questions

Will I notice the difference between a SATA SSD and NVMe in games?
Barely – loading differs by a few seconds. The difference between any SSD and a hard disk, on the other hand, is huge. We choose NVMe because it costs the same, not because it decides games.
Will a PCIe 4.0 drive work in a PCIe 3.0 board?
Yes, the slot is backwards compatible. The drive runs at PCIe 3.0 speed, about 3,500 MB/s instead of 7,000, which you will not notice in everyday use.
What SSD capacity for games?
1 TB is the minimum, 2 TB is comfortable. One current game takes 100–150 GB and the system with programs roughly another 100 GB.
Is an HDD worth buying for a new computer?
Only as a second drive for large data from 4 TB up – backups, films, archive. System and programs belong on an SSD; in a laptop an HDD no longer has a place.

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