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Upgrade your data storage
There are two good reasons to upgrade your hard disk drive. You may need more storage
capacity or you may wish to speed up your rig by switching from a mechanical drive to a
solid state drive (SSD).
CAN YOU UPGRADE?
If you can physically upgrade the storage on your computer, then this is
not usually a complicated thing to do and can be carried out with few Once you are sure
tools other than a screwdriver. While desk-top computers usually have you can upgrade, find
plenty of slots for extra disk drives, some slim laptops or all-in-one out which of the
tablets have no provision for upgrading their storage. If the storage can technologies and
be upgraded, there may be provision for only certain size or format of formats are
new storage devices, for example 2.5 inch bays or the latest M.2 compatible with your
format. This will restrict the type of storage that can be installed. system.
WHICH DRIVE WORKS FOR YOU? be available. This
format is becoming available in high-end and
If you can upgrade, then you need to find out light-weight laptop computers.
which sort of drive is compatible with your
machine. It is worth considering what sorts of
storage devices are available. Here are The M.2 format is
some of the current sorts on the market: effectively a
Mechanical hard drives miniature PCI-
Solid state drives Express socket with
SATA connected SSDs a theoretical
maximum
M.2 format SSDs bandwidth of 32
MECHANICAL HARD DRIVES Gbits/second
compared with 6 Gbits/second for SATA
These hard drives offer reliable performance connected drives. M.2 format drives can hit
at reasonable prices per gigabyte. They are much higher speeds than are possible over
much slower than SSDs and provide SATA. Premium M.2 format drives using
economical solutions to large capacity NVMe technology can deliver close to four
secondary storage where speed is not at a times the speed of a SATA drive.
premium. They are not recommended as the
main system disk where a smaller SSD will All M.2 have standard dimensions and SATA
improve boot up time and system drives are usually supplied as 2.5 inch
performance considerably. format. Just bear in mind that there are two
thicknesses of SATA drives – 7 mm or 9.5
SOLID STATE DRIVES mm. You may need to check on your laptop
These are available in two formats; the computer whether it is limited to the thinner
familiar 2.5 inch disk drive and the newer size. The use of a spacer can pad the
M.2 format stick. The SATA connected drive thickness of a slimmer drive in a 9.5 mm
will fit in most desk-top computers, while the space.
newer M.2 format requires a special slot to
CAPACITY OR SPEED?
The performance difference between an SSD and a mechanical drive is not only about data
transfer speed, but also on seek time. On a mechanical hard disk the head has to physically move
between different areas of the disk surface as it fetches bits of data for different programs or
processes. On an SSD all locations are instantly addressable so performance is fast, smooth and
responsive.
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Type of Storage Benefits Disadvantages Notes
Mechanical hard disk drive Large capacity at Slow, not so good as Reliable, tested
relatively low price per system drive technology
GB
Solid state drive (SATA) Fast with commonly Quite expensive Premium storage
available 2.5 inch especially for large for data centres
slots capacity drives
Solid state drive (M.2 Small but very fast Need specialised Good for video or
format) slot and expensive very large files
Cloud storage Unlimited storage Not under personal Has an on-going
control cost
A large capacity (up to several terabytes) hard disk drive is economical if speed is not essential,
but economical storage is. Mechanical hard drives are available in both the larger 3.5 inch and the
2.5 inch size. For a primary drive SSD, a capacity of 256 GB or even better 512 GB would be ideal
and affordable. Similarly an M.2 format drive may be used as a primary (system) disk or as super-
fast secondary storage.
So far we have only talked about internal storage. Using an external disk drive to store your data is
also a possibility using any of the drive types discussed here. An advantage of this is that you have
portability of your data and can take it from one computer or location to another. You could also
choose to store your data on a server in the cloud and have it accessible from anywhere that you
can use an internet connection.
UPGRADING TO A NEW SYSTEM DISK
There are several options to transferring the contents of the old disk onto the new disk. One
method is to make a clean install using a version of the operating system on disk. This method will
remove all existing programs you have. These will need to be reinstalled after the new disk is
operating. An alternative method which will preserve your existing programs is to use cloning
software (often supplied with a new disk drive) and make an exact copy of the current disk. This
can be quite straightforward, but if the new disk is a smaller capacity than the one it is replacing
may involve you in deciding what to keep and what to leave out. A third route is to make a virtual
image of the source disk and copy it onto external media, then boot from a disk containing the
imaging software choosing which files to keep.
Good luck if you decide to upgrade your storage.
