Hard disk drive and solid state drive are both digital data storage technologies widely used in notebooks, desktop PCs, servers and different gaming platforms. Hard drives with its massive storage capacity in cheaper price and solid state drives with faster performance both have got their own advantages. Today, one can also take advantage of both these technologies at a time by putting them together inside the system and using them correctly for maximum performance.
Here, I will explain how you can install the two different storage hardware in desktop computers including MAC and PC and also in laptop computers to fulfill your storage and performance needs. Gamers, media coders, movies enthusiasts, developers and ordinary computer users of Windows, Mac OS and Linux based systems can put HDD and SSD side by side and increase the capability of a computer system to carry out the required tasks with desired outcome.
In Desktop Computer
A desktop computer is preferably used by PC gamers and IT guys as they have got the opportunity to install new hardware easily according to their needs and improve the system performance for better gaming and professional work. This is not true in case of laptop due to the limited space. So, if you are using such system, you can install several hard disk drives and solid state drives together depending upon your storage needs and the size of system. What you need to take care of includes the following things:
1- Make sure that power supply of computer is powerful enough to take the load of several connected storage hardware. If it is short in power, get a newer one before proceeding. Also, it should have the required number of power connectors for connecting hard drives and solid state drives.
2- Make sure that motherboard has required number of SATA connectors available. New hard drives and solid state drives come with latest SATA interface. Make sure that your motherboard also supports latest SATA interface. Latest SATA can give the peak performance with an SSD.
3- Connect your hard drives and solid state drives inside the system properly and secure them tightly with chassis. From the BIOS of motherboard, set the drives as primary and secondary. You must set the SSD as a primary drive (main/master drive) and hard drive as secondary. This way, SSD will be used for booting the computer that will ultimately result into faster loading of operating system and best performance while using the computer.
4- Always install operating system, programs and games in solid state drive. Use hard drive for backup and any other data storage which is not directly involved in system running processes.
In Notebook Computer
Notebook computers have got very limited space for installing hardware. All necessary hardware comes preinstalled in notebooks. But one can modify it according to the requirements. Since, there is no space to install spare SSD or HDD, you have got only one option which is to remove the whatever storage hardware you have and installing a hybrid drive. A hybrid drive has got both solid state drive flash chips and hard drive platters installed inside the single enclosure. The best thing is, such hybrid drives run on same ports on which normal SSD or HDD does. So, you won’t face any difficulty while installing it.
Hybrid drives come in different capacities. Always check for the separate capacities of solid state and hard drive before purchasing the hybrid drive. Such drives use solid state drive portion for keeping those important files which are directly required for running the system like operating system and programs files while hard drive portion is used to store large and not frequently used data. Hybrid drives always lag in performance when compared with individual solid state drives. If you are hesitant to open your laptop computer and install a hybrid drive, take the help of an expert and make sure to confirm you won’t void the warranty due to opening the notebook or installing a new hardware.