Question Internal Hard Drive Storage Advice Needed

[MasterYoda327]

I plan to build a new gaming PC. I am still doing my research on components, but my intention is to use a 2TB M.2 NVME SSD for the operating system and most commonly used games and programs. In addition to gaming, I plan to do basic drone video and photo editing with this PC such as basic editing, graphics, and animation (nothing Hollywood level). If it helps, I plan to build a mid-range gaming PC for gaming at 1440p with a dual monitor setup. As already stated, I plan to use the NVME SSD for Windows 11, and two, possibly three internal drives for storing other games, music, and drone videos and photos (drone is 4K capable). Storage wise I am considering between 2 and 4TBs for the internal drives. My budget is around $2000 or less. Now, would I be better off using SATA SSDs or HDDs for the internal storage? Would this also be applicable to an external hard drive? Thanks in advance.

 

[USAFRet]

I plan to build a new gaming PC. I am still doing my research on components, but my intention is to use a 2TB M.2 NVME SSD for the operating system and most commonly used games and programs. In addition to gaming, I plan to do basic drone video and photo editing with this PC such as basic editing, graphics, and animation (nothing Hollywood level). If it helps, I plan to build a mid-range gaming PC for gaming at 1440p with a dual monitor setup. As already stated, I plan to use the NVME SSD for Windows 11, and two, possibly three internal drives for storing other games, music, and drone videos and photos (drone is 4K capable). Storage wise I am considering between 2 and 4TBs for the internal drives. My budget is around $2000 or less. Now, would I be better off using SATA SSDs or HDDs for the internal storage? Would this also be applicable to an external hard drive? Thanks in advance.

I am in pretty much exactly the same place as you are.

In my new system (buying in the next week or two)....

OS/Application drive - Samsung 980 Pro 1TB (already have)
Secondary drive - Samsung 990 Pro or WD SN850X 4TB. Currently, $250ish
Photo, UAV video, CAD work, etc...

(there will be other SATA III SSDs, but mainly because I already have them)

 

[Misgar]

Storage wise I am considering between 2 and 4TBs for the internal drives. My budget is around $2000 or less.

I've no idea how big your drone files are, but my GoPro creates 11GB files for 15 minute 4K videos. I stopped using 2TB drives some years ago and now regard 4TB as small. On a 4-week vacation I generate 600GB+ of RAW, JPG and MOV files, si I soon use up disk space.

Try to calculate your storage requirements for the next year and buy accordingly. Some manufacturers hard disks scale evenly on a per-TB basis, meaning a 2TB drive is half the cost of a 4TB drive, but you'll probably see very little difference between 500GB and 1TB hard disk drive prices nowadays.

Regardless of what you buy, you can always add more hard disks (and SSDs) at a later date, up to the capacity of the case and motherboard ports. I have some systems in Lian Li V2000 cases which have slowly filled up with 10 hard disks, with room for more.

As hard disk drive capacities increase, so do read/write speeds. My 8TB drives start off at 250MB/s, falling to 120MB/s. This is handy when spooling video projects if you don't have an M.2 NVMe "work in progress" drive, separate from your main OS + program drive.

 

[geofelt]

The best case for a ssd is for random i/o.
That is what windows does most of the time.
Video files can be large and are sequential.
On a cost per gb basis, a HDD is a winner. It is a winner for backups also due to the sequential nature of access.

Today, there is little difference in cost per gb with any ssd, regardless if it is pcie or sata.
There are plusses and minuses for using either.
A motherboard, particularly older ones ,may have a limited number of m.2 slots
Plan on how to use them.
Connecting up a m.2 device is easy but needs good access to the motherboard. Some m.2 slots are on the back side or hidden under the graphics card. Sata devices need a psu power connector as well as a sata data cable.

You may find that modern cases are short on 3.5" HDD adapters.

All this said, plan on what you need now, as well as into the future.