Having both a solid state drive (SSD) and a hard disk drive (HDD) in your computer system is absolutely possible. In fact, many people utilize this setup to take advantage of the benefits of each storage technology.
SSDs are significantly faster than HDDs due to not having any moving parts. This makes them optimal for housing the operating system and applications. However, SSDs come at a higher cost per gigabyte compared to HDDs. This makes HDDs better suited for storing large amounts of data, such as photos, videos, games, and media files.
By combining an SSD and an HDD, you get the best of both worlds – speed and capacity. The SSD handles the OS and apps for fast boot ups and quick launch times, while the HDD stores all your data. This hybrid configuration is popular for both desktop and laptop PCs.
How do you connect both drives?
Connecting an SSD and HDD together in a system is straightforward. Almost all modern motherboards have multiple SATA ports, which is the interface both drives use. So it’s simply a matter of plugging the SATA cable from each drive into an available SATA port on the motherboard.
Many cases also have multiple drive bays, allowing you to mount both an SSD and HDD. Laptops typically have room for only one 2.5″ drive, but some models support adding an SSD in the M.2 slot. Overall, there are no technical limitations to running both drive types together.
Which drive should house the OS?
For optimal performance, it is highly recommended to install your operating system and primary applications on the SSD. The faster speeds of SSDs result in much quicker boot ups, faster program launches, and overall snappier system responsiveness.
Keep the HDD for file storage and secondary programs that you don’t access as often. Any files stored on the HDD can still be accessed quickly and easily when needed.
What are the performance differences?
SSDs can read and write data anywhere from 3-5 times faster than HDDs on average. This performance advantage comes from SSDs using flash memory chips and having no moving parts that generate latency.
Some speed comparisons:
- SSD sequential read speeds – Up to 560MB/s
- HDD sequential read speeds – Up to 210MB/s
- SSD random read speeds – Up to 100k IOPS
- HDD random read speeds – Up to 1-2k IOPS
As a result, expect applications and games to load much quicker on an SSD. Transferring files between drives or devices will also be faster.
Which has higher capacity potential?
HDDs are available today in much higher capacities compared to SSDs. Currently HDDs can store up to around 10-14TB per drive, while the maximum capacities for consumer SSDs are around 8TB.
If your main priority is having tons of storage space for media, games, etc., HDDs will serve that need better. The tradeoff is slower access times when loading all that data. With SSD capacities continually increasing, this capacity gap is closing.
Which is more reliable and durable?
SSDs are considered more reliable than HDDs in general. This comes down to a few factors:
- No moving parts – Less potential points of failure
- Shock/vibration resistance – No head crashes or disk platters to damage
- Faster data access – Less time for errors to occur
However, modern HDDs also have very low annual failure rates around 2-3% on average. So both types of drives are highly reliable if handled properly.
SSDs also have higher durability when it comes to data writes. Most can withstand hundreds of terabytes written over the lifespan versus tens of terabytes for HDDs.
How do prices compare?
SSDs carry a price premium over HDDs for an equivalent storage capacity. Roughly, SSDs cost around 3-5 times more per gigabyte compared to HDDs.
Here are some average price comparisons for consumer models:
- 500GB SATA SSD – $60
- 1TB SATA HDD – $35
- 1TB NVMe SSD – $85
- 2TB SATA HDD – $50
The price gap has narrowed recently, but HDDs remain significantly cheaper for bulk data storage needs. Performance enthusiasts or power users may invest in a smaller SSD with a larger secondary HDD.
Should the drives be formatted the same?
There is no requirement for the SSD and HDD to use the same file system format. The only consideration is that the OS drive should use a modern file system to ensure proper support.
For example, you could have Windows installed on an SSD formatted with NTFS, while the HDD is formatted with exFAT for shared external storage use.
Mixing a FAT32 HDD with an NTFS SSD won’t provide any technical issues. Just be aware of the FAT32 file size limit of 4GB.
Is maintenance and optimization different?
SSDs and HDDs share similar maintenance needs like periodic drive health checks and keeping the drives defragmented. However, SSDs do not need defragmenting anywhere near as often as HDDs.
Due to the way data is spread across the flash memory chips, SSDs do not suffer from performance degradation with file fragmentation. So defragmenting more than once a month is unnecessary.
SSDs also do not need any disk cleanup like HDDs require. TRIM functionality built into modern SSDs handles all the grooming tasks automatically.
Are there hybrid SSD/HDD drives?
There are hybrid SSHD drives available that combine an SSD and HDD together in a single drive enclosure. A small SSD portion acts as a cache for improving performance over a traditional HDD.
However, implementing a separate dedicated SSD generally provides faster performance. SSHDs are a good compromise when only having space for one drive.
Can you store games on both drives?
Games can be freely installed to both an SSD and HDD within the same system. To take advantage of the SSD’s speed, install your most played games to that drive.
For games that have long load times, keeping them on the SSD improves loading performance significantly. Titles that you play less often can be kept on the HDD.
One option is to first install everything to the HDD. Then as the SSD starts to fill up, transfer the most performance demanding games over to it.
What RAID configuration options exist?
If supported by the motherboard, SSDs and HDDs can be configured together in a RAID array. Common options include:
- RAID 0 – Combines drives for faster performance. Highest risk of failure.
- RAID 1 – Mirrors drives for redundancy. Half the total capacity.
- RAID 5 – Block-level striping with distributed parity. Solid redundancy.
- RAID 10 – Mirroring + striping. Requires 4+ drives but provides excellent performance and fault tolerance.
RAID allows you to pool the strengths of both SSDs and HDDs. For example, using an SSD for caching while HDDs provide ample storage capacity.
Conclusion
Using both an SSD and HDD together provides the ideal blend of speed, performance, storage capacity, and affordability. With the right strategy, you can maximize the strengths of each drive.
Structure your storage with OS/apps on the SSD and data files on the HDD. Maintain them properly and utilize appropriate RAID or caching as needed. This dual drive setup covers all the bases for a responsive and versatile computer.
Summary of Key Points
- It’s very common to use both SSDs and HDDs in a system due to their respective benefits.
- Install the OS and apps on the SSD for best performance.
- Use the HDD for storing files, media, games with ample capacity.
- Connect the drives using spare SATA ports and power cables.
- SSDs are much faster, but HDDs have greater capacities currently.
- SSDs are more durable, but modern HDDs are also highly reliable.
- HDDs are cheaper per gigabyte, but SSD prices continue dropping.
- RAID can optimize performance by combining both drive types.
- Dual drive setup provides ideal speed, responsiveness, and storage capacity.
| Drive Type | Advantages | Disadvantages |
|---|---|---|
| SSD | Faster performance More durable |
Higher cost per GB Lower capacities |
| HDD | Cheaper per GB Higher capacities |
Slower performance Less durable |