Nowadays, you may need hard disks with larger capacity to save the large videos or games. The SSD prices fall, but at the same time the mechanical hard drive storage capacity is increasing. To choose an SSD or to choose an HDD, it is a problem. Perhaps, you can get the answer from this post.
The Need for Storage Capacity of Hard Disk on PC Is Increased
At present, the video definition is becoming higher and higher, and the game effect is getting better and better. At the same time, the size of the videos and games will be larger and larger. Thus, if you are such a user who needs to save a lot of videos or games, you must need to use a large capacity hard disk drive.
Nowadays, the data storage devices which are used on the computer are the mechanical hard disk drives and the solid-state drives. Of which, the solid-state drive wins by its perfect performance and the mechanical hard disk drives wins by its price and large capacity.
Mechanical Hard Disks Are Still Under Development
In recent time, the SSD prices fall, and the trend of falling prices continues. Even so, the SSD prices are still higher than the mechanical hard disk drive.
In addition, due to the inherent characteristics of solid-state drives, there is very little chance to import the data on the drive if the SSD is damaged.
As a result, if there is a need to use the data storage device with large capacity, most of you would like to choose the mechanical hard disk rather than the solid-state drive. And fortunately, the mechanical hard disk manufacturers are also do their best to research and develop new and high storage technologies to increase t hard drive storage capacity.
The Seagate hard drive is using the heat-assisted magnetic recording technology that can record data by using laser beam heating. This record method can increase the density of the hard drive disk so as to increase the hard drive storage capacity.
The Western Digital hard drive is using the microwave-assisted magnetic recording technology which is an update based on the current hard disk recording methods. The cost of this technology is less than the Seagate’s heat-assisted magnetic recording technology.
While, the Toshiba Company is using the traditional recording methods which can increase the hard disk drive capacity by adding the numbers of built-in discs.
At present, largest hard drive capacity of these brands is up to 16TB, and the breakthrough of 20TB is just around the corner.
SSD or HDD?
Although the capacity of mechanical hard drives is constantly increasing, are they really suitable for the average consumer?
From the perspective of price and daily use, it is not recommended to choose such a large-capacity mechanical hard disk:
Price: The price of a mechanical hard disk of 16TB capacity is more than $599.99. Even a 12TB drive can cost you about $419.89. However, a 2TB hard disk drive can only cost you about $55.99. The cost performance of large-capacity hard disk is not generally low. If you want to use large capacity, why not choose multiple hard drives at the same time.
Stability: Most of the hard drive disks are using the new technologies, thus, their life and stability have not been tested for a long time. Then, the probability of drive problems is even greater. If you save your files on one hard disk, you will bear a huge risk in case it is broken.
At present, the large-capacity hard drives have just been listed. We believe that the technology will be mature in the future and the price will be reduced. It is not too late to use them at that time.
About The Author
Position: Columnist
Stella has been working in MiniTool Software as an English Editor for more than 7 years. Her articles mainly cover the fields of data recovery including storage media data recovery and phone data recovery, YouTube videos download, partition management, and video conversions.