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Question

HDD+SSD vs SSD+SSD

Aug 17, 2018 4:38PM PDT

I recently got into upgrading laptops, and I have a fairly new ASUS laptop that I use for school and engineering software. The laptop has an HDD and an SSD, I wanted to upgrade the SSD to 500GB, but then I started to think about changing the HDD to an SSD as well. Would there be any real benefit to having 2- 500GB SSD's instead of a 500gb SSD and the 2T HDD?


ASUS - 2-In-1 15.6" 4K Ultra HD Touch-Screen Laptop Intel Core I7 16GB Memory NVIDIA GeForce GTX 1050 - 2TB HDD + 256GB SSD - Sandblasted Matte Black Aluminum

Discussion is locked

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Answer
Depends on use.
Aug 17, 2018 4:47PM PDT

I'll be changing out my work machine 1TB HDD for SSD since I have some apps on it and the move will get the entire machine to full SSD speeds.

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Faster Access
Aug 17, 2018 7:54PM PDT

Anything you have stored now on the HDD will open, and load, and save quicker when stored on an SSD. It's as simple as that. Other minor benefits of switching the secondary drive from an HDD to an SSD are a few minutes extra battery life and greater shock resistance (but you're not going to drop your laptop on the sidewalk, are you?).
When choosing an SSD you may safely ignore details such as maximum speed of one model over another. The single most important choice is for reliability. Opinions vary, but Intel, Crucial, Samsung and Sandisk have all gained good reputations. Just avoid the low priced entry level models and you should be OK. Note that while the standard warranty is 3 years, some models come with a 5-year warranty.

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The tradeoff ...
Aug 17, 2018 11:21PM PDT

... is between these items:

- the mechanical robustness of the no-moving-parts SSDs versus the tender mechanics of "spinning media."

- the speed

- the capacity

- the cost

- the "fuel efficiency"

To me the capacity is the determining consideration. I am running two 2TB HDDs in my Lenovo and its ultrabay - an optical drive is no longer important and an external one can be connected via USB, The cost also plays a role - and I have learned to treat my equipment with some consideration for its sensitivities.

So, in your configuration, if you don't need the extra 1.5 TB the spinning disk has "in store" for you and you have the budget, all the advantages are with the SSDs. At least, if you are dealing wit current technology. There is an issue with SSD technology having a limit on the number of writes a storage location can perform in its lifetime. But things have improved by now to a point where under normal circumstances the useful life of an SSD is about the same as that of spinning disks.

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If you configure it right, then SSD+HDD is best.
Aug 18, 2018 8:27AM PDT

Others may argue, but I feel it is best on a number of grounds to limit SSD to your system and applications, and put your data on an HDD.

One reason is cost. Data tends to consume most of the storage capacity on any computer, and more so as the computer grows more, ummm, mature. You can get 8 TB of HDD storage for less than the cost of a 1 TB SSD.

A second reason is the lifespan of the drive. Although no longer anywhere nearly as severe a problem as it was in the early days of SSDs, they still have limited write cycles. Your O/S and applications are often read but very seldom written to, but your data is written all the time with every saved file.

A third reason is basic efficiency. Your data reading and storage do not require the speed of an SSD -- the slower data transfer speeds of an HDD are just fine for most data and you do not notice any difference in performance. Furthermore, even with a computer HEAVILY laden with many large applications suites and whatnot, a 256 GB SSD is generally more than adequate.

Now, the downside of this is the different way these two drives fail. SSDs tend to monitor their own health and fail only gradually, permitting you to save their contents and replace the drive before they utterly fail. HDDs tend to fail catastrophically without warning, and if you don't have your data backed up it might be VERY expensive even to partially retrieve it. But the Mean Time Between Failure (MTBF) of most HDDs these days is EXTREMELY long -- it is highly likely you will be getting a new computer LONG before one fails. But it is a good idea to back up your data frequently anyway.

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Well on most modern laptops
Aug 21, 2018 5:52AM PDT

and especially 2-in-1's that have 2 drive have a SSD M.2 which is a smaller card and the SSD or HD is your normal 2.5 SATA connection. Look into this before you purchase. The M.2 almost look like memory.