Fatima Suleiman Ibrahim/NG400/009

Upgrade your data storage

There are two good reasons to upgrade your hard disk drive. You may need more storage capacity
or you may wish to speed up your rig by switching from a mechanical drive to a solid state drive
(SSD).
CAN YOU UPGRADE?
If you can physically upgrade the storage on your computer, then
this is not usually a complicated thing to do and can be carried out Once you are sure you can
with few tools other than a screwdriver. While desk-top computers upgrade, find out which of the
usually have plenty of slots for extra disk drives, some slim laptops technologies and formats are
or all-in-one tablets have no provision for upgrading their storage. compatible with your system.
If the storage can be upgraded, there may be provision for only
certain size or format of new storage devices, for example 2.5 inch
bays or the latest M.2 format. This will restrict the type of storage that can be installed.
WHICH DRIVE WORKS FOR YOU? familiar 2.5 inch disk drive and the newer
M.2 format stick. The SATA connected drive
If you can upgrade, then you need to find out will fit in most desk-top computers, while the
which sort of drive is compatible with your newer M.2 format requires a special slot to
machine. It is worth considering what sorts of be available. This format is becoming
storage devices are available. Here are available in high-end and light-weight laptop
some of the current sorts on the market: computers.
 Mechanical hard drives The M.2 format is effectively a miniature
 Solid state drives PCI-Express socket with a theoretical
 SATA connected SSDs maximum bandwidth of 32 Gbits/second
 M.2 format SSDs compared with 6 Gbits/second for SATA
MECHANICAL HARD DRIVES connected drives. M.2 format drives can hit
much higher speeds than are possible over
These hard drives offer reliable performance SATA. Premium M.2 format drives using
at reasonable prices per gigabyte. They are NVMe technology can deliver close to four
much slower than SSDs and provide times the speed of a SATA drive.
economical solutions to large capacity All M.2 have standard dimensions and SATA
secondary storage where speed is not at a drives are usually supplied as 2.5 inch
premium. They are not recommended as the format. Just bear in mind that there are two
main system disk where a smaller SSD will thicknesses of SATA drives – 7 mm or 9.5
improve boot up time and system mm. You may need to check on your laptop
performance considerably. computer whether it is limited to the thinner
SOLID STATE DRIVES size. The use of a spacer can pad the
thickness of a slimmer drive in a 9.5 mm
These are available in two formats; the space.
CAPACITY OR SPEED?
The performance difference between an SSD and a mechanical drive is not only about data
transfer speed, but also on seek time. On a mechanical hard disk the head has to physically move
between different areas of the disk surface as it fetches bits of data for different programs or
processes. On an SSD all locations are instantly addressable so performance is fast, smooth and
responsive.
Type of Storage Benefits Disadvantages
Mechanical hard disk drive Large capacity at relatively Slow, not so good as system
low price per GB drive
Solid state drive (SATA) Fast with commonly available Quite expensive especially
2.5 inch slots for large capacity drives
Solid state drive (M.2 format) Small but very fast Need specialised slot and
expensive

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 Fatima Suleiman Ibrahim/NG400/009
Cloud storage Unlimited storage Not under personal control
A large capacity (up to several terabytes) hard disk drive is economical if speed is not essential,
but economical storage is. Mechanical hard drives are available in both the larger 3.5 inch and the
2.5 inch size. For a primary drive SSD, a capacity of 256 GB or even better 512 GB would be ideal
and affordable. Similarly an M.2 format drive may be used as a primary (system) disk or as super-
fast secondary storage. So far we have only talked about internal storage. Using an external disk
drive to store your data is also a possibility using any of the drive types discussed here. An
advantage of this is that you have portability of your data and can take it from one computer or
location to another. You could also choose to store your data on a server in the cloud and have it
accessible from anywhere that you can use an internet connection.
UPGRADING TO A NEW SYSTEM DISK
There are several options to transferring the contents of the old disk onto the new disk. One
method is to make a clean install using a version of the operating system on disk. This method will
remove all existing programs you have. These will need to be reinstalled after the new disk is
operating. An alternative method which will preserve your existing programs is to use cloning
software (often supplied with a new disk drive) and make an exact copy of the current disk. This
can be quite straightforward, but if the new disk is a smaller capacity than the one it is replacing
may involve you in deciding what to keep and what to leave out. A third route is to make a virtual
image of the source disk and copy it onto external media, then boot from a disk containing the
imaging software choosing which files to keep.
Good luck if you decide to upgrade your storage.