Solid-state drives replaced hard drives for good reasons: instant access time, silent operation, and lower power draw. In 2025, even budget NVMe SSDs deliver several times the real-world responsiveness of HDDs. Booting the OS, launching apps, or importing photos is constrained by latency, not just peak bandwidth—and SSD latency is orders of magnitude lower.
If you’re migrating from an older PC, check for an M.2 NVMe slot. Any PCIe Gen 3 or 4 drive will feel fast; Gen 5 matters mainly for heavy workstation tasks. Capacity is the practical choice: 1 TB feels roomy for everyday users and avoids the red-zone slowdown that happens when drives are nearly full. Keep 10–20% free space for wear-leveling and performance.
HDDs still make sense as cold storage for large libraries and backups. A 4–8 TB external HDD is cheap per terabyte and fine for archived video or system images you rarely open. For active projects and scratch disks, SSD wins every time.
When buying an SSD, check endurance (TBW) and warranty length. Most consumer drives exceed typical home workloads, but editing 4K video or running VMs benefits from higher-endurance models. Enable TRIM (on by default) and update firmware via the vendor tool a few times a year.
Bottom line: Use an NVMe SSD for the system and apps; park bulk files on an external HDD or cloud.
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