DESHNA JAIN IN918 0019

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 Once you are sure you can
carried out with few tools other than a screwdriver. While upgrade, find out which of the
desk-top computers usually have plenty of slots for extra technologies and formats are
disk drives, some slim laptops or all-in-one tablets have no compatible with your system.
provision for upgrading their storage. If the storage can be
upgraded, there may be provision for only certain size or format of new storage devices, for example
2.5 inch bays or the latest M.2 format. This will restrict the type of storage that can be installed.
WHICH DRIVE WORKS FOR YOU? format stick. The SATA connected drive will fit
in most desk-top computers, while the newer
If you can upgrade, then you need to find out M.2 format requires a special slot to be
which sort of drive is compatible with your available. This format is becoming available
machine. It is worth considering what sorts of in high-end and light-weight laptop
storage devices are available. Here are some computers.
of the current sorts on the market:
The M.2 format
 Mechanical hard drives is effectively a
 Solid state drives miniature PCI-
Express socket
 SATA connected SSDs with a
 M.2 format SSDs theoretical
maximum bandwidth of 32 Gbits/second
MECHANICAL HARD DRIVES compared with 6 Gbits/second for SATA
connected drives. M.2 format drives can hit
These hard drives offer reliable performance
much higher speeds than are possible over
at reasonable prices per gigabyte. They are
SATA. Premium M.2 format drives using
much slower than SSDs and provide
NVMe technology can deliver close to four
economical solutions to large capacity
times the speed of a SATA drive.
secondary storage where speed is not at a
premium. They are not recommended as the All M.2 have standard dimensions and SATA
main system disk where a smaller SSD will drives are usually supplied as 2.5-inch format.
improve boot up time and system Just bear in mind that there are two
performance considerably. thicknesses of SATA drives – 7 mm or 9.5
mm. You may need to check on your laptop
SOLID STATE DRIVES computer whether it is limited to the thinner
These are available in two formats; the size. The use of a spacer can pad the
familiar 2.5-inch disk drive and the newer M.2 thickness of a slimmer drive in a 9.5 mm
space.
.
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

Mechanical hard disk Large capacity at relatively low Slow, not so good as system drive
drive price per GB
Solid state drive Fast with commonly available 2.5 Quite expensive especially for large
(SATA) inch slots capacity drives
Solid state drive Small but very fast Need specialised slot and expensive
(M.2 format)
Cloud storage Unlimited storage Not under personal control

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.