One of the main elements of a computer is the storagesince these units are in charge, worth the redundancy, of storing all our data and that of the OS itself.
The problem is that storage, unfortunately, is practically the slowest hardware that makes up the PC, and it is usually the main reason for crashes or a slow system, often due to the fact that the speed difference it causes disks to become cluttered with things like paging.
We must say, yes, that today there are solutions of excellent quality / price thanks to the advancement of technology. In addition, we not only have mechanical hard drives, which, except for surprise, do not have many years of life left: this is due to the superior SSD technology and its cost reduction.
In case you didn’t know, here’s a definition of the ssd: Flash drives with lower latencies for use as fast, reliable long-term storage than flash drives that already exist on USB devices.
Yes, we are going to mention that there are still some other problems regarding the SSD memoriesso fast that the interface that connects them to the computer, SATA in this case, becomes saturated, since it is not designed to carry so much information.
For example, SATA 3, the latest version, has a bandwidth of 6Gbps (about 700MB/s), and current SATA SSDs have speeds very close to that limit, leading to bottlenecks.
To solve this, a few years ago the M.2 connection interface was released, although in its first years of life this connection continued to use the SATA interface.
Not long ago that changed, as the NVMe protocol came out, a storage interface that would use the bandwidth of the system’s PCIe lanes, either from a new version of the M.2 connector or by using the PCIe connections themselves.
Now, although NVMe drives are through the roof and sata SSD’s can’t be afforded by everyone, here comes a comparison of HDD’s, SSD’s and NVMe’s. We have chosen the best quality / price and those that stand out from their competition.
Content
- Analysis best hard drives 2018
- HDD list to compare
- Comparison of the best SSD drives
- SSD for comparison
Analysis best hard drives 2018
Before seeing the differences between each one, I would like to make a point in a series of values to know what they mean:
- Sequential speed: It is nothing more than the read/write speed of large files that occupy several blocks of the disk and are read “in one go”. Sequential performance drops when we have a highly fragmented disk.
- Random speed: It is the read/write speed of small files. This is usually very important as it greatly influences things like loading the file index. Mechanical drives are bad here, as they are only capable of reading one file at a time.
HDD list to compare
The albums on this list are:
- Seagate Barracuda 1TB (Since 2016): One of the last HDDs that Seagate has released, good value for money, for around €40.
- Seagate Barracuda 2TB (Since 2016): The next model in the 2016 Barracuda series with better performance than the 1TB version, for around €65.
- Toshiba P300 2TB: It has the same performance as the 1TB Barracuda, but with 2TB capacity, yes, it is cheaper than the 2TB Barracuda, from €60.
- WD Black 2TB (Since 2013): The WD Black range is designed to hold a load without saturating the disk, although they are already somewhat outdated, their price is around €140.
- WD Blue 2TB (Since 2015): WD’s Blue range is no longer worth much because there are better hard drives for the same price. For €65 we can buy one.
- Seagate SkyHawk 6TB (Since 2016): Designed for surveillance systems, it has very good random speed, this is one of our favorites. It costs approximately €191.
- Seagate IronWolf 8TB (Since 2016): This is the star drive on the list, not only for its capacity but for its great performance, yes, this drive costs €230, although we can always choose a smaller storage size without losing quality.
there is so much here large cache hard drives, such as hybrid drives and even large storage. The positive thing about hard drives, yes, is that they have been on the market for so long that there are an infinite number of types to choose from. To avoid this chore, which is thinking about where we are going to invest our money, I have prepared a series of comparative tables that define each HDD by themselves:
Comparison of the best SSD drives
In the case of solid disks, we will have the 2 previous speed variables plus a new one:
- Sequential speed: Here it changes a bit how sequential accesses work, since performance will not drop due to a fragmented disk, since SSDs cannot be fragmented.
- Random speed: As with HDDs, the random access speed is lower than the sequential speed because in sequential access the disk only has to read one memory address, access the entire file and that’s it, but in random access the disk has to read the memory addresses several times, since they are different. Of course, thanks to the fact that an SSD is made up of memories, the random performance is superior to that of an HDD.
- Parallel speed: This is basically parallel random access, which does the same thing as random access, but with multiple files at once. This is a unique quality of SSD’s, since HDD’s are not capable of parallelizing memory access.
SSD for comparison
Now yes, the SATA SSDs that make up this list are:
- Corsair Neutron XT 240GB: This SSD has one of the best sequential access scores on the list, it is a great performance SSD, it costs more than normal, approximately €150, but it is due to the use of good quality memory.
- HyperX Savage 240GB: Another SSD with very good performance in sequential access, like the Corsair, with a higher price than the average, €127, for quality memories. Check the price.
- SanDisk Ultra II 240GB: This would be considered an entry-level SSD, since it is worth much less than the previous two, €75, and is due to its lower performance, both in sequential writing and in random access. If what you are looking for is to improve an HDD without spending a lot of money, this is your SSD drive. Check the price.
- WD Blue SSD 500GB: An alternative to SanDisk but with more capacity, since it performs practically the same, since with this WD we are also talking about an entry-level SSD, for €90. Check the price.
- Crucial MX500 500GB: This Crucial SSD performs well in random access, since it does not use particularly fast memory, as occurs with the Corsair SSD, but it does use a very good controller that manages to optimize this type of access. It costs around €87. Check the price.
- Samsung 850 Evo 500GB: For around €100, this SSD will surprise you, it is very durable and, thanks to an excellent memory controller, it achieves the best random access on this entire list. Check the price.
It must be said that all SSD’s from the list They have higher capacity models, but these days it’s not worth using more capacity unless you’re into something like video editing and need quick access to lots of large files. If you still need more capacity, I recommend that you accompany your new SSD with some HDD from the list above.