I get asked by a ton of people, both online and in real life, for recommendations on what to use for their desktop setups. Today, I want to key in on the hard drive setup.
Generally, most people are fine with the standard 500GB-1TB SATA hard drive. However, when I get asked by someone looking to do more than the standard Internet Browsing and Word processing, I often offer a more complex solution. I will recommend that they go with a SSD drive for Windows and a few key programs and then also add in a SATA drive for less intense programs, music, video, and more. Until SSD drives become less expensive, this configuration allows for performance while not breaking the bank. I like this setup so much right now that I even use this in my own primary desktop.
The Hard Drive is a Bottleneck
The main reason I recommend this setup is that the hard drive is often the bottleneck of a computer’s performance. Your RAM is many times faster than your hard drive when it comes to accessing data. This is often why many people recommend memory upgrades. However, for certain programs, your computer just needs to access the hard drive. These situations are when an SSD + SATA setup really thrive.
The Key to the Setup
The key to this setup is to get your operating system, in my case Windows, and your most intense programs onto the SSD drive. In my case, I was able to do this with a 128 GB SSD drive from Crucial. Depending on your budget, you may want to go with a little bit bigger or smaller drive. I wouldn’t go smaller than 64GB though.
You may ask “What are my most intense programs?”. Well, this depends. If you are a gamer, this will be your newest and most played games. If you edit video, this might be Adobe Premiere. If you are a designer, this may be Photoshop. Whichever programs you decide to install on your SSD will run and load much faster. Having Windows on the SSD will also improve the overall speed of your system as well.
You can then use the slower SATA drive to store all of your video, music, and less intense/important programs. For example, I went ahead and loaded Office onto my SATA drive since Office doesn’t take a ton of resources and since I don’t use Office a ton on this particular machine.
Cost of SSD technology
The reason this setup is recommended is due to the high price of SSD hard drives right now. If money is no object, then the obvious, ideal solution would to be have a 100% SSD configuration. However, most of us just don’t have the $500 or more to spend on hard drives alone. So, until this technology drops in price, I would really recommend getting the best of both worlds with a hybrid SSD+SATA setup.