Hard Drives by Application: Which Is Best for You?

When it comes time to build a computer, populate a RAID or NAS array, replace a corrupted drive, or expand your system’s current storage capacity, the sheer quantity of drive options can be daunting. I’m not talking just about storage capacity, but also form factor, interface, and more. While you could just haphazardly buy something and hope for the best, there are certain drives that are better suited for specific purposes. Will your home system need a drive with enterprise or data-center features? Probably not, and at the same time, you wouldn’t want to use a drive that isn’t optimized for 24/7 use in an array that is going to be operating more often than not.

Form Factor – 3.5", 2.5", and M.2

Before buying anything, familiarize yourself with the form factor(s) and interface(s) that your system supports. The most common form factors are 3.5", 2.5", and M.2. 3.5" drives offer the largest storage capacities, but are physically big, generate a lot of heat, and are only available as a spinning hard drive, as compared to a flash-based solid-state drive. Solid-state drives are faster than hard drives since they have no mechanical parts, and 2.5" drives are available as both solid-state drives and hard drives. The smaller form factor of 2.5" doesn’t allow for the larger storage capacities of 3.5", although they do generate less heat. 2.5" drives are also available with heights of 7mm, 9.5mm, 12.5mm, and 15mm, so be sure to also check the maximum height your 2.5" bay can accept, but most 2.5" drive bays are generally 7mm or 9.5mm. M.2 drives are only available as solid-state storage in form factors of 2242 (42mm), 2260 (60mm) 2280 (80mm), and 22110 (110mm), so be sure to check your system’s M.2 slot compatibility. Physically, M.2 drives are the smallest and generate the least amount of heat.

Interface – SATA and PCIe

3.5" and 2.5" hard drives and solid-state drives typically use the SATA interface, while M.2 drives are built with both PCIe and SATA compatibility. Whether your M.2 SSD uses SATA or PCIe will depend on the specs of your host system, but PCIe offers faster read and write speeds than SATA.

Now that we’ve covered form factors and interfaces, here are some suggested drives for specific purposes, whether it be general use, design, photo/video, gaming, and more.

Casual PC Users

Casual users and those engaging in internet browsing, email, non-intensive gaming, and other general tasks such as adding pictures, videos, and clip art to a Power Point presentation, calculating complex cell formulas in Excel, and creating eye-catching flyers and other documents in Word will appreciate the WD Blue lineup. Available as a 2.5" hard drive, WD Blue drives combine large capacities and low noise levels with an affordable cost-to-performance ratio. Within the 3.5” form factor, WD Desktop Everyday drives have you covered.

If you’re interested in an entry-level 2.5" SSD, Crucial’s MX500 lineups should check off any items on your wish list, including fast read and write speeds and a low cost-per-gigabyte ratio. Although it has a 7mm form factor, an included spacer will allow it to be used in bays with a height of 9.5mm. If your system uses PCIe M.2, then Crucial’s P1 NVMe M.2 Internal SSD is worth a look.

Gamers

Gaming enthusiasts would be wise to look in WD’s Black and Desktop Performance lineup, which offer larger capacities and faster throughputs at solid cost per gigabyte ratio. WD’s Black and Desktop Performance drives are available as a 3.5" hard drive, a 2.5" hard drive, or an NVMe PCIe M.2 SSD either with or without a heatsink. The SSD would offer the best performance this lot, and so long as your gaming rig has an appropriate processor and graphics card, graphics-intensive games such as Battlefield V will run without incident.

If you’d prefer a straight-up Seagate hard drive, their BarraCuda drives are available for 3.5" and 2.5" drive bays, and the BarraCuda Pro is available for 3.5" bays in capacities up to 14TB. Barracuda Pro drives feature faster data transfer speeds and are built to be more durable for greater usage.

Games these days are getting larger and larger, so if you’re someone who plays a lot of different titles, hard drives may be a good choice for general storage, while games played more frequently, or games you want loaded faster, can be kept on an SSD. Additionally, in single player games, where you have to wait for loading screens, a faster drive can help speed things up. This differs from multiplayer games, where everyone needs to finish loading before the game starts, so you won’t have to worry about speed as much, since you’re basically waiting on the slowest player regardless.

If you want your games to load faster, don’t hesitate to invest in an NVMe PCIe SSD, which are discussed in greater detail in the next section. If you’re running a game that is less demanding, then you won’t have to worry about whether to use a hard drive, solid-state hybrid drive, or solid-state drive for your rig. There’s also no reason that any of these drives aren’t suitable for casual PC users running more general tasks.

Photo & Video Enthusiasts / Power Users

People working with photo and video typically engage in bandwidth-intensive tasks and need a drive that can keep up. This includes complex tasks in Photoshop, such as multi-layer effects rendering, and working with one or more high-res digital photos or film scans, while video users running Final Cut or Resolve can find themselves working with Full HD, 4K, 8K, 3D, HFR (high frame rate), and HDR (high dynamic range) video, all of which can eat up a great amount of bandwidth, especially once effects and color grading are applied. The best choice here is an M.2 NVMe PCIe SSD, such as the Samsung 970 PRO, 970 EVO Plus, and 970 EVO. All of these SSDs have a form factor of M.2 2280.

If your system only supports M.2 SATA, then a solid choice is the Samsung 860 EVO, which has an M.2 2280 form factor. If you need a 2.5" SATA SSD, the 860 EVO is also available as a 2.5" / 7mm SSD in capacities up to 4TB. If you need M.2 SATA SSDs with other form factors, Transcend offers the MTS400S (2242) and MTS600 (2260).

If your primary concern is speed, then you’ll want an NVMe PCIe M.2 drive, regardless of the application.

If you don’t exactly have one of those connections available, there is an alternative that promises incredible speed, an SSD designed for a PCIe slot. Boasting similar, impressive speeds to M.2 NVMe storage, these options have a benefit is being able to be  slotted directly into many standard desktop computers with ease. Also, external Expansion Chassis meant to work over fast connections like Thunderbolt 3 can accept these devices for fast performance without an open slot in your PC. An example would be the Intel Optane series which fits the PCIe 3.0 x4 interface and promises speeds up to 2600 MB/s.

Data Storage / Redundancy / Archiving

Are you looking for a durable drive for your NAS or RAID array? WD’s Red Series is available as a 3.5" and 2.5" hard drives. Red drives are best for NAS environments with up to 8 bays, while the 3.5" Red Pro hard drives are for 16-bay arrays. Seagate’s equivalents are the 3.5" IronWolf and IronWolf Pro drives. If you need maximum capacity, both the IronWolf and IronWolf Pro drives offer a 16TB option. All of these are built with high levels of reliability, low failure rates, and error recovery, making them an intelligent choice for applications other than NAS and RAID environments. They can be used for general tasks, although I wouldn’t use any NAS drive with less than 7200 rpm for anything intensive, such as gaming, photo, or video work. All in all, will your system be powered on more often than not? If so, a NAS drive is a worthy choice, even if it’s being installed on a single bay desktop/notebook or enclosure.

Surveillance Systems

Do you engage in surveillance? If so, WD’s Purple drives are made for 24/7 use with firmware and caching algorithms for write-intensive applications. Seagate’s SkyHawk drives are similar, and also suitable for surveillance, as well as data center use, are WD’s Gold drives. All these drives have a 3.5" form factor. Given their high durability, WD Red drives could also be used for surveillance.

So, there you have it. Whether you’re a storage newbie or a seasoned veteran, this guide will help you select the proper drive for specific applications that matches the form factor and interface of your host system.

Do you have preferred drives for the above-mentioned uses? Feel free to share your comments below.