M2221STORAGE

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 carried out with few tools other than a screwdriver. While desk-top
computers usually have plenty of slots for extra disk drives, some slim laptops or all-in-one tablets
have no 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?
If you can upgrade, then you need to find out which sort of drive is compatible with your machine. It
is worth considering what sorts of storage devices are available. Here are some of the current sorts
on the market:
Mechanical hard drives
Solid state drives
SATA connected SSDs
M.2 format SSDs
Mechanical Hard Drives
These hard drives offer reliable performance at reasonable prices per gigabyte. They are much
slower than SSDs and provide economical solutions to large capacity secondary storage where
speed is not at a premium. They are not recommended as the main system disk where a smaller
SSD will improve boot up time and system performance considerably.
Solid State Drives
These are available in two formats; the familiar 2.5 inch disk drive and the newer M.2 format stick.
The SATA connected drive will fit in most desk-top computers, while the newer M.2 format requires
a special slot to be available. This format is becoming available in high-end and light-weight laptop
computers.
The M.2 format is effectively a miniature PCI-Express socket with a theoretical maximum
bandwidth of 32 Gbits/second compared with 6 Gbits/second for SATA connected drives. M.2
format drives can hit much higher speeds than are possible over SATA. Premium M.2 format drives
using NVMe technology can deliver close to four times the speed of a SATA drive.
All M.2 have standard dimensions and SATA drives are usually supplied as 2.5 inch format. Just
bear in mind that there are two thicknesses of SATA drives – 7 mm or 9.5 mm. You may need to
check on your laptop computer whether it is limited to the thinner size. The use of a spacer can
pad the 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.
Type of Storage Benefits Disadvantages Notes
Mechanical hard disk drive Large capacity at Slow, not so good as Reliable, tested
relatively low price per system drive technology
GB
Solid state drive (SATA) Fast with commonly Quite expensive Premium storage
available 2.5 inch especially for large for data centres
slots capacity drives
Solid state drive (M.2 Small but very fast Need specialised Good for video or
format) slot and expensive very large files
Cloud storage Unlimited storage Not under personal Has an on-going
control cost
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.

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There are two good reasons to upgrade your hard disk drive.

You may need more storage capacity

Can you upgrade?

Which drive works for you?

Mechanical Hard Drives

Solid State Drives

Upgrading to a new system disk

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