SSD vs HDD: Which should I have in my PC?

What's the difference between the two?

In its purest form, an SSD is flash storage and has no moving parts whatsoever. As a result, they're smaller and take up less space in a PC case, in some instances even mounting directly to the motherboard. SSD storage is much faster than its HDD equivalent.

HDD storage is made up of magnetic platters and has mechanical parts inside. They're larger than SSDs and much slower to read and write but offer higher capacities and better value when comparing the price of $ per GB.

Why use an SSD?

If you're building a PC for any purpose, you're going to want speed. If you only have HDD storage in your machine, then speed isn't something coming your way. Windows will take longer to boot up, applications will take longer to load, and files will take longer to open and save.

The beauty of the best SSD is that this waiting time is dramatically reduced, even on cheaper drives, when compared to HDD. Anything you load on it will perform actions much quicker.

One of the best uses for an SSD in a PC is as a boot drive. This means installing a small-ish capacity drive on which your operating system will live and boot up every day. By doing this, your PC will boot up and be ready to go in a flash. You can also put your most frequently used software on there for a similar effect.

The lifespan of an SSD isn't as long as that of an HDD, but you can certainly use an SSD as your only drive on a PC. Many laptops only have SSD storage, for example. You're not looking at a short-term life, but compared to HDD storage, it is reduced. SSDs don't handle being written to as well over time, but a boot drive wouldn't suffer this.

SSD prices have come down a lot in recent times, too, with the price per gigabyte much lower than it once was. Large capacity drives are still expensive, as are the highest performing ones, but generally speaking, they're more affordable than ever.

Why use an HDD?

The best case for HDD is mass storage. This type of drive is cheaper than SSD and available in some quite massive sizes. Have a lot of games or media to keep on your PC? No problem, you can get one or more drives over 1TB in size for a fraction of the cost of their SSD equivalents.

PC cases usually have space for more than one drive, meaning you can stack up as much mass storage as you can stash, and your budget will allow. The price per gigabyte is still much less than SSDs, and larger capacities won't take all your money. An efficient system would have an SSD to boot Windows from and one or more HDDs for mass storage.

Our recommendation: what should you use?

Our ultimate recommendation is to opt for a mixed system with HDD mass storage and an SSD boot drive for your OS. This way, you'll get a balance of price, performance, and space, and you'll have a well-rounded machine for all occasions. If your storage requirements are smaller, an all-SSD system is a way to go.

If you can have an NVMe drive in your PC, then these will yield the best performance, and thankfully aren't that expensive anymore. Our ultimate recommendation is the Samsung 970 EVO Plus, thanks to its reliability, insane performance, great warranty, and reasonable price.

If you're looking to get some of that NVMe performance on a budget, you can also do that with the excellent Crucial P5 Plus. It's not as fast as a Samsung SSD, but it costs a good chunk less.

For mass storage, whether you go for a 2.5-inch SSD or an HDD, these are our top recommendations. Both are from well-respected brands, are reliable products, and won't run away with your wallet.