The best hard drives for pc. Choosing a laptop hard drive
How to choose a hard disk (HDD), which one is better to choose
This article will talk about INTERNAL hard drives (HDD) and what parameters to look for when choosing them. Everyone knows that the hard drive is the “computer memory” that stores all the data in the computer. This article will be useful for those who are going to buy a new hard drive, or just assembling a new computer. And so, let's get started:
Hard Drive Form Factor
This term is understood physical dimensions of the hard drive, and are determined by its width. The most common hard drive form factors are 3.5 inches desktop and 2.5 inches for laptops.
The speed of rotation of pancakes, and the speed of work in general
From pancake rotation speed hard disk directly depends on the speed of its operation. But an increase in the speed of rotation of pancakes leads to faster wear, increased noise emission and heating. If the speed of the hard drive is not critical for you, and you value its reliability more than speed, then it is better to choose a series of hard drives without increasing the speed. To date, the standard speed of rotation of pancakes in the HDD is 7200 rpm for 3.5 inch HDD, and 5400 rpm 2.5 inch.
hard drive interface
The HDD interface is a type of connection and operation of a hard disk with a controller.
IDE- an outdated HDD interface, but it is still quite common in older PCs.
SATA- the interface that came to the estimate of the IDE. The SATA interface has a higher bandwidth. Today, there are 3 types of SATA interface: SATA1 (1.5 Gb / s), SATA2 (3 Gb / s), SATA3 (6 Gb / s).
Hard drives with SATA interface can only be connected to a motherboard with SATA interface support, or through an IDE to SATA/SATA to IDE converter board. That is, hard drives of different interfaces are connected to different ports.
SATA HDDs are fully interchangeable. For example, a SATA3 HDD can be connected to a SATA2 interface, but the speed will be limited by a slower device, in this case, a SATA2 controller.
Hard disk capacity
There is nothing to advise in this matter, choose the size of the hard disk, starting from your needs. Just keep in mind that buying a hard drive of one size, you will get a little less (by Microsoft standards), since HDD manufacturers consider one gigabyte as 1000 megabytes, and your operating system will show you the volume, counting that one gigabyte is 1024 megabytes. Thus, on one gigabyte, you lose 24 megabytes.
Hard disk cache (buffer)
The amount of buffer memory significantly affects the performance of the HDD at some points. The cache memory of the hard disk is used to store any data that has already been read earlier, and when re-accessed, the cache memory can give them much faster than when physically accessing the HDD sectors. Thus, the more cache, the better.
Hard disk manufacturer
At the moment, there are 5 major manufacturers of hard drives: Samsung, Hitachi, Western Digital, Toshiba, Seagate.
Lifespan and reliability of hard drives, depends on the manufacturer. The most reliable and durable HDDs are representatives of Hitachi, HDDs from Western Digital serve a little less, and the rest are an order of magnitude worse.
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Despite the apparent simplicity, choosing a high-quality HDD can take a lot of time, specific knowledge and effort. When buying a drive in a store, consider the following factors: direct volume information custodian type connector, speed spindle rotation size cache, as well as manufacturer(the latter to a lesser extent).
Disk capacity
Everything is simple here, the higher the volume, the more files and information you get copy and keep on the HDD. At present Not recommended purchase hard drives with a capacity of less than 1 terabyte (1024 gigabytes) of memory. After all, modern films, music files, programs, and even more so computer games will require a lot of disk space.
If desired, you can install an additional drive, greatly increasing the free disk space. But here it should be noted that the necessary connectors on the motherboard and the power of the power supply are very limited. Infinitely increasing the volume by installing additional hard drives will not work, so you need to immediately purchase the most capacious devices.
connector type
The stores mainly sell HDDs equipped with connectors SATA2 and SATA3 . Recommended buy standard hard drives SATA3 . Firstly, they work faster, and secondly, such drives are much newer.
At various computer flea markets and bulletin boards, you can find older drives equipped with SATA1 or even IDE connectors. Buy such devices categorically Not recommended, because their speed and reliability leaves much to be desired. At the same time, IDE standard drives cannot be installed in a modern computer without the use of special adapters.
The SATA connector looks like this (it will not be possible to determine the exact version of the connector by appearance, this information can be viewed in the product specifications): 
The IDE HDD standard looks completely different: 
Spindle speed
From this parameter directly depends write and read speed, especially for large files. Optimal is rotation frequency at 7200 rpm, it is these drives that you should buy in your PC.
Faster hard drives are not worth buying. Firstly, they are much more expensive, for their price tag you can buy a good SSD. Secondly, such devices cannot be called too durable, because their heat release increases significantly.
Devices with a spindle speed equal to 5400 rpm, will provide insufficient information transfer speed for a stationary computer. Such drives should be used only as a "file dump".
Cache Size
The cache serves as buffer for temporary files. When the cache is full, the speed of reading and writing from the HDD may drop significantly. So Not recommended purchase disks with a cache size less than 16 megabytes. The buffer of such devices will be constantly crowded, due to which the read and write speed will be far from the maximum.
Devices with too big Cache size (128 megabytes and above) is not worth buying. They will cost indecently expensive, at the same time, a special increase in performance for the user won't get.
Manufacturers
The quality of the device and the compliance of its actual technical characteristics with the declared ones directly depend on the manufacturer. The main companies producing disk drives, are Seagate, Western Digital, Toshiba, HGST.
These manufacturers produce high-quality devices that can serve faithfully for a long time, although the HDD of the presented companies will cost a little more. Other, less well-known manufacturers also often produce good HDDs, but when buying such devices, the chances of running into a marriage are somewhat higher.
In general, you can recommend purchase devices with the longest warranty period. This will allow you to protect yourself as much as possible, because if the hard drive breaks down during the warranty period, you will lose practically nothing, since you will be replaced with a new device.
What to look out for
Buying hard drives can cause problems for people who are not knowledgeable in this topic, especially given their variety. But there are few really suitable solutions in stores, mostly mediocre devices with low speed and reliability, or vice versa, are too expensive, but relatively fast.
Ideal choice - average in parameters HDD more or less well-known manufacturer. Top models are certainly good, but for such a gigantic price you can get a good one. SSD, which will surpass the aging storage standard on all fronts.
Many of us cannot imagine modern life without the Internet. Someone uses it only to go to social networks a couple of times a day, watch the weather forecast or chat with friends on Skype, but most of the happy owners of high-speed Internet use it to download this or that information, magazines, videos, etc. Thus, if earlier we could not even dream of a 1 TB hard drive, and the very possibility of filling it with extremely important information in a matter of days seemed something absolutely fantastic, now such storage media are in great demand, and the demand is highest to external hard drives.
Well, demand, as you know, creates supply. Therefore, now you can buy an external hard drive up to 6 TB or more. But how reliable and profitable will such an acquisition be? Indeed, now, when the dollar exchange rate has exceeded 75 rubles, hard drives are very expensive, and I want them to serve, if not for a hundred years, but not for a year, and even more so for a month. Which one is better to choose a hard drive that best suits your needs, as well as quality and reliability criteria?
In order to choose the right hard drive for your needs, you need to pay attention to its parameters.
Hard disk capacity
What do most of us pay attention to when choosing a hard drive? That's right - on the volume, which directly depends on how much data (documents, music, books, films, etc.) can be written to it. Modern HDDs have volumes from several hundred gigabytes to several terabytes. The bigger, the better. But not always more - more reliable and cheaper. Since at present disks with a capacity of 500GB to 2TB do not differ so much in price, for storing large amounts of information it is better to look at disks with a memory of 2-3TB.
Interface
The hard drive is connected to the computer motherboard using an interface cable. As for internal computer drives, there are two types of interface - modern SATA and outdated IDE. Modern drives can have one of the following interface types - SATA (data transfer rate up to 1.5 Gb / s), SATA 2 (up to 3 Gb / s), SATA 3 (up to 6 Gb / s). The former have long been discontinued, and SATA 2 and SATA 3 are made interchangeable, however, if SATA 3 is inserted into a SATA 2 connector, it will work at SATA 2 speed.
Spindle speed (pancakes)
The speed at which the hard disk spindle rotates directly affects the read-write speed. Naturally, the higher it is, the better. The best option would be to buy a disk with this parameter of 7200 rpm. For installing an operating system or games, a drive with a “speed” indicator above 10,000 rpm is best suited. Better yet, use modern solid-state SSD hard drives for these purposes (we will look at them a little later).
Cache memory (buffer memory) of the hard disk
Cache memory is the memory where data from the disk that has already been read, but not yet transferred through the interface, is stored, which also affects the speed of the hard disk. Today this parameter can be 16, 32 or 64 MB. The more cache, the better.
Form factor
The form factor of a hard drive refers to its overall dimensions. Of the main ones, two types are produced: 2.5 "or Small Form Factor (referred to as SFF) and 3.5" - Large Form Factor (LFF). The former are intended primarily for laptops, so their spindle speed, as a rule, does not exceed 5400 rpm. 3.5-inch hard drives are already designed for installation in a computer system unit, but there is a trend towards their reduction and the release of all HDDs in the 2.5-inch form factor.
Which brand hard drive is better to buy?
And who actually produces them? The number of brands under which hard drives are produced is huge, but until recently there were only three manufacturers: Hitachi, Seagate (correctly pronounced Seagate, not Seagate, as many people call it) and Western Digital. But the manufacturer Hitachi as such no longer exists, since all of their production facilities and technologies have become the property of Western Digital. Thus, now the choice remains only between two manufacturers.
So which is the most reliable hard drive - Western Digital and Seagate? Judging by the numerous reviews, analyzes and statistics of disk returns-breakdowns, we can recommend not buying Seagate at all if possible. Someone will say that Seagate internal drives bought long ago have served him faithfully for 5-10 years. As a rule, they mean disks with a capacity of 40 GB or less. Of course, they can be better and more reliable, but how can they be compared with modern ones, made using a completely different technology?
With the growing demand for hard drives with more memory and faster read-write speeds, manufacturers were forced to meet the needs of the consumer, unfortunately at the expense of quality. Thus, in these tough market conditions, Western Digital has proven itself best as more reliable hard drives. Do not take this as an advertisement, because it is possible that you have your own opinion on this matter, but, for lack of a better one, we now have to recommend WD. A trend has been noticed: if a WD hard drive worked without breakdowns in the first month of operation, then most likely it will work for a very long time. Therefore, if you decide to buy a WD hard drive, then after purchasing it in the first weeks, test it to the fullest, check it with special programs so that if a marriage is still found, immediately exchange it in the store and subsequently do not run around service centers, which in Russia there are very few, if any. So, for example, when a Hitachi hard drive broke down, people had to send it to a service center abroad, and the cost of repairing it with shipping was almost the cost of a hard drive, which already shows the inexpediency of repairing hard drives - it’s easier to buy a new one.
Which hard drive is better to choose from WD?
Western Digital hard drives are produced under different series, as evidenced by the color of the inscriptions on the disc itself: black, green, blue or red. What is the difference?
For most users, WD blue hard drives are optimally suited to perform everyday tasks on a computer, both in terms of price and functionality. They are not the cheapest and fast enough. Of course, if there is a need to work with video and graphics very often or play modern, resource-demanding games like GTA V, and you also have the means to buy a “cooler” disc, then you can take a closer look at discs from higher price categories. Seagate Barracuda drives in the middle and low price range can be attributed to analogues of WD blue series hard drives.
As for the hard drives of the Western Digital green series, which are found in the same Seagate, they are ideal for people who care about the environment, although what do they do for the environment? The only thing is that they do not contain lead. These drives have a lower operating speed, but low power consumption is perhaps their main and only plus. Therefore, "green" hard drives are well suited to owners of laptops running on batteries.
Comparatively inexpensive WD Green drive
WD's Premium Black Series Hard Drives are nimble, reliable, and quite expensive. They are ideal for gamers and people who are constantly involved in video editing.
Modern "red" WD drives, according to manufacturers, are intended for NAS - network drives. They are designed for round-the-clock work, for example, for the constant distribution of torrents - for which they are usually used. For most of us, the role of NAS in this case is played by a regular computer - and it works the same. Therefore, on the forums, the "red" Western Digital was dubbed nothing more than pure marketing. Buying such a drive for an ordinary home computer is at least wasteful, since you will not feel the difference in your daily work. Yes, and with round-the-clock operation, the disk can, like any other, fail. Even if it happens in a year or two. The only difference is that in the event of a breakdown of disks of other series when working in 24/7 mode under warranty, they simply may not be accepted - after all, they are not intended for this. And it's good if there is at least one service center for repairing hard drives in Moscow, not to mention other cities. As for other companies... Or rather, as for Seagate, they produce similar drives with the abbreviation NAS.
Of course, you can also choose well-established drives from Samsung or Toshiba brands, but they are all manufactured by third-party companies, that is, they can be assembled at both WD and Seagate. It’s hardly worth the risk here, but there are also successful models, as can be judged by the large number of positive customer reviews about a particular model both on the Yandex Market and on online shopping sites. It can even be profitable to buy a hard drive on the Internet, for example, in the time-tested Ozone, especially during the period of discounts or promotions, since many cities have their points of issue, which significantly affects the cost of delivery.
Before buying, also pay attention to the year of manufacture of the model. It is best, as in principle when buying any other equipment, not to choose the newest, not yet time-tested models, but to purchase an already well-proven model released a couple of years ago. In addition, the price of such hard drives, as a rule, is significantly lower, if not by an order of magnitude.
How to choose an external hard drive? Which is better?
External hard drives are convenient because they do not need to be mounted in a laptop or computer case, but simply connected via any external connector - USB 2.0, USB 3.0, FireWire or eSATA. The best choice is a USB 3.0 hard drive, because it is faster and also compatible with USB 2.0, so it can be connected to any computer.
An external hard drive can be made in two form factors, which we discussed above. If compactness and the ability to carry a hard drive with you often are important to you, then you should choose only 2.5 ″ drives powered only by a USB port. But remember that small drives have a slower data transfer rate. If you need a disk simply for storing large amounts of information and do not often need to carry it with you from place to place, then you should pay attention to external 3.5 ″ drives, which are mainly powered by a 220V network.
If you plan to carry a hard drive with you often, then you can pay attention to the strength of its case. It is desirable that it be rubberized. Or buy a case for it. However, this does not mean that the hard drive will be able to play football - according to the results of crash tests, most hard drives failed after falling from a height of only 10-15 cm in working condition. You may have better luck - but have it in view and still be careful - this is not a phone with a touch screen, which can be changed even for a lot of money. After all, recovering information will be much more difficult.
In addition, it became possible to connect ordinary hard drives, which are designed to be installed in the system unit, from the outside through special boxes with several connection interfaces. The box itself can be connected via a USB port to a computer.
In addition, many modern computer cases are already equipped with a special compartment into which you can connect a regular HDD as an external hard drive - very convenient.
Down with rotating pancakes! Long live SSD!!!
Is it true that we will soon forget the HDD hard drives we are used to like a bad dream?! They are being replaced by modern solid-state drives, erroneously also referred to as hard drives. But they have absolutely nothing in common with them, because they completely lack mechanical parts! An SSD is no longer a disk, it is inherently more like a very large and capacious flash drive with microcircuits. All data is transmitted exclusively electronically.
Solid State Drive with minimum 32 GB SSD storage
SSD drives are connected via the latest SATA 2 and 3 interfaces, and some can be connected via PCI Express (much faster!), Simply installed in the appropriate slot on the computer motherboard - PCI-E. SSDs are characterized by the same parameters as conventional HDDs. Unless, like a flash drive, there are no rotation speeds - there is simply nothing to rotate! And since SSDs are more compact than conventional computer hard drives, they are often sold with an adapter, so that they can be inserted into a standard HDD box of the system unit without any problems.
Due to the absence of any mechanical "spins", it would seem that SSDs should be more reliable, faster, quieter and consume less energy. So what are we still waiting for? Why don't we throw our multi-terabyte HDDs in the landfill and gallop to the store to buy state-of-the-art SSDs? The thing is that this is still a novelty, which, firstly, not everyone can afford. Perhaps in the future, prices for SSD drives will fall to the ground from heaven, and then they will become available. mere mortal mass buyer. In addition, SSDs are not yet distinguished by their durability - despite such a plus as a many times lower probability of damage when dropped, unlike conventional hard drives, solid state drives nevertheless also break. Therefore, it is still better and safer to store important files on familiar HDDs!
But this does not mean at all that we should now completely abandon all the advantages of SSDs, since they are the best fit for installing an operating system! The system on such a disk will simply fly! This does not mean that we need to buy an SSD drive with a capacity of several terabytes at the price of an apartment outside the Moscow Ring Road - take one that has enough space for the system and the most necessary programs, and a budget and much slower “green” disk will do just fine for storing files WD Green series. In any case, it is advisable to purchase a separate, faster drive for the system - for example, the same "black" WD, if funds do not allow buying a solid state drive.
Another important point: if you buy an SSD to install the system, then install at least Windows 7 on it, since older versions of the operating system do not support working with these drives.
We hope that our advice will be useful to you and help you decide which hard drive to choose based on your own needs and financial capabilities.
Hello, friends! This article will talk about how to choose a hard drive for your computer. Despite the massive offensive on all fronts of solid state drives, the good old hard drives are still the most common place or medium of information storage. Both important and not so important. The question of choosing a hard drive remains and most likely will remain relevant for several more years. On the Internet, there are many options for choosing a drive for a computer. In this article I will tell my own and try to justify it. I understand that my choice may be far from perfect, therefore, I will be glad if you share yours.
Choosing a hard drive should begin with determining the purpose of the drive. What will you store on it? There are several answers:
There are 3 options for this drive:
1. SSD - Choosing a Solid State Drive
SSD- solid state drive. A non-mechanical device consisting of memory chips and a control controller. Roughly speaking, this is a USB disk (flash drive) with a conventional SATA hard disk interface. It has a high data access speed, due to which it is considered as a system disk. More information about SSD can be found in the article SSD drives.
The absence of moving parts provides the following benefits:
- High speed data access
- Low power consumption
- Resistance to mechanical stress
High access speed is ensured by the type of memory chips used in the manufacture and the absence of a mechanical part that creates significant time delays.
Low power consumption ensures low heat generation, so you don't have to worry about the drive overheating.
Due to the increased resistance to mechanical stress, SSD drives will be an excellent replacement for hard drives in laptops and netbooks.
Silence will be a great bonus especially when working at night and if the system unit is located close to you.
The only downside to the widespread adoption of SSDs, at the moment, is the price. Therefore, if you are willing to pay for speed, then opt for solid state drives. Now the purchase of any SSD drive, even the slowest and cheapest, will lead to a significant increase in computer performance.
For the system disk, depending on the operating system being installed (Windows XP, Windows 7 or Windows 8) and its bit depth (32 or 64 bit), a different capacity is required. For Windows XP, 10 GB is enough, for Windows 7/8 32-bit, 16 GB or more is desirable, for Windows 7/8 64-bit, 20 GB or more is required.
If you want to install frequently used programs and files, it is better to use a capacity of 64 GB, which, in my opinion, is more appropriate for quality work.
All modern drives are available with a connection interface that provides data transfer at a speed of 6 Gb / s - SATA III.
Choose simply
We go to the online store, select SSD drives with SATA III interface, set the sorting from cheap to expensive and select the maximum capacity at the price that suits us. We pay attention to the guarantee. For me, 36 months is the minimum. More is better.
2. HDD - selection of a hard disk drive
HDD. It has one significant “+” in comparison with solid-state drives, due to which it has become very widespread - the price.
From the "cons":
- High power consumption
- NOT resistant to mechanical stress
High power consumption corresponds to increased heat dissipation, which raises the issue of cooling. This is especially true if the system has more than one hard drive.
Not resistance to mechanical stress and noise are due to the manufacturing technology of the hard disk.
HDD, unlike SSD, has a 3.5" form factor for desktop PCs. At choosing a system hard drive pay attention to the spindle speed - 7200 rpm. Less is not recommended, there will be a decrease in performance, more - there will be a significant increase in price and the pointlessness of choosing a hard drive. Better buy an SSD.
For me, an important factor when choosing any drive, especially a hard drive, is the manufacturer's warranty. The bigger, the better. At the moment, at least 2 years is better than 3. There is an HDD with a 5-year warranty, but for such a price it is more advisable to take an inexpensive SSD and a “green” hard drive.
3. SSHD - hybrid hard drive selection
Form factor- 3.5″. Measured in inches, it refers to the width of the hard drive. For a desktop computer, this is the most common form factor. Laptop hard drives and solid state drives have a 2.5″ form factor. Less common are 1.8″ discs.
Buffer volume- 64 MB. buffer or cache. The memory in which the last used information is stored, the probability of re-accessing which is higher. When requested, the presence of the necessary information is first checked in the cache, and if it is not found, it is searched for on disk platters. The speed of the cache is approaching the maximum speed of the interface. The larger the cache, the higher the performance of the hard drive, and therefore the higher the performance of the computer.
Spindle speed- 7200 rpm. This is not a "green" hard drive with more or less decent performance. Naturally, in comparison with disks at 5400-5900 rpm.
Average waiting time- 4.16 ms. The average time it takes to find the right information. The smaller this parameter is for a hard drive, the faster the latter.
Transfer rate- 6 Gbps maximum theoretical hard drive speed when connected to a SATAIII port
Maximum power consumption- 5.9 V. Measured in recording mode. Downtime will be less. To get the real power of your hard drive, you need to add the power consumption along the 5 V and 12 V lines. To do this, find the current strength (A) along these lines on the hard disk sticker (usually it is indicated next to the voltage) and multiply by the voltage (5V or 12 AT).
With physical dimensions, everything is clear. Warranty. For me, this is practically the main criterion for choosing a hard drive. More is better.
We have analyzed the main characteristics given in the store. I hope now it will be easier for you to make your choice.
Conclusion
If you need to choose a drive for a laptop, then these will be models in the 2.5-inch form factor. If this is a disk for a desktop computer - 3.5". Plus, when choosing a drive for a laptop, you need to pay attention to the height. Some models may have a maximum of 7 mm. Either take your drive out of the laptop and measure it, or look at the height in the documentation on the manufacturer's website.
About reliability. It is impossible to say for sure that some manufacturer or some disk is not reliable. There are unsuccessful models (example Seagate 7200.11). In this case, the guarantee, which should be as large as possible and regular backups, saves.
Remember, everything breaks and therefore backup and backup again. It is very convenient to use cloud storage services such as Dropbox, Google Drive and Yandex Disk for this.
If the budget allows, it is better to separate the storage subsystem into a system drive and a data drive. As the first, it is desirable to choose an SSD drive with a capacity of 128 GB or more. To fit the operating system with all installed programs and still get frequently used data. For a data drive, it's better to choose a hybrid hard drive. In any case, its performance will be higher than that of a simple HDD.
If the budget is limited and does not allow dividing the storage system into a system and data drive, then in this case you will have to make do with one drive. It would be better if it was SSHD. If you do not need speed at all, then you can choose a simple HDD.
In any case, pay attention to the warranty. More is Better.
- 1. Hard drive volume
- 2. Connection interface
- 3. Rotation speed
- 4. Buffer memory
- 5. Dimensions
- 6. Manufacturer company
- 7. External screw selection
- 8. All this is good, but what about the SSD?
Sooner or later, each of us is faced with a situation where the internal memory of a personal computer is running out, and we do not want to delete the existing information. In this case, there is only one thing left - to purchase a new, more capacious hard drive, but I want to do it in such a way that such a problem does not loom on the horizon for the next five years. In order to help our readers make the best purchase, today we will talk about which hard drive to choose for a computer in 2019. First, we will discuss its most important parameters.
Hard drive volume
Of course, first of all, any buyer thinks about the volume of the hard drive. By the standards of history, until recently, 20 gigabytes of internal memory space seemed like a luxury and excess, and today not every game can fit on such a modest hard drive. When discussing how much hard drive you should buy in order to make the purchase profitable and efficient, you should first of all take a look at the current state of affairs on the market. 
In the segment of hard drives, as in other computer components, you can notice a trend - top options are much more expensive than competitors that are not so much inferior to them. In order not to overpay for the fleeting right to feel like the owner of the best toy, you should look towards the middle price range, and there, in turn, notice that a 500 gigabyte screw does not differ much in price from a fellow 2 terabyte - then why save a few percent of the cost getting four times less free space?
Connection interface
The hard drive is connected to the motherboard, and hence to all other components of the system unit, via a cable. This cable can have one of two types of interface - the current SATA and the outdated IDE. If your current home computer was purchased not 15-20 years ago, but noticeably later, then you may not look towards IDE, and SATA is divided into three types - SATA 1, SATA 2 and SATA 3, respectively. 
The first of them, as well as IDE, cannot be found in the daytime, and the second and third generations differ in data transfer speed - 3 Gb / s and 6 Gb / s, respectively. By the way, these two types of interfaces are interchangeable, but if you want to insert a SATA 3 hard drive into the second connector, it will work at SATA 2 speed. If you decide to purchase an external hard drive, then USB 3.0 should be preferred.
Rotational speed
The faster the spindle rotates, the higher the read / write speed of the hard drive will be, and therefore this aspect is also one of the main ones when choosing the right hardware. In fact, this parameter has long reached its reasonable limit, which is at around 7200 rpm, and therefore choosing almost any screw regarding this characteristic will not be a mistake. 
Nevertheless, if you are buying a filling for a gaming computer, we recommend that you stop at hard drives with a rate above 10,000 rpm, and a hard drive made using SSD technology will be the most preferable purchase, but such instances will be discussed later. By the way, the vast majority of external hard drives operate at a speed of 5400 rpm and this fact does not cause any particular problems.
buffer memory
Buffer memory, also known as cache memory, is a place where data is localized that has already been read from disk, but has not yet been transferred through the interface, which means that the larger it is, the higher the overall system performance. External drives are content with 8 MB, but for an internal drive, you should choose 32 MB and higher - 64 will be ideal. 
Dimensions
Hard drives, despite identical functions, can have very different sizes, the main ones are Small Form Factor at 2.5 inches and Large Form Factor at 3.5. The former, as a rule, have less key indicators, for example, the spindle rotates at a speed of 5400 rpm, but they are used in laptops due to their compactness. Larger ones are suitable for familiar personal computers, but in recent years there has been a noticeable tendency to transfer even more powerful hard drives to a smaller format. 
Manufacturer company
Despite the fact that dozens of brand names appear in the price lists of computer equipment stores, only two giants produce them - Seagate and Western Digital. Regarding the advantages of a particular manufacturer, it is difficult to say anything unambiguously, but after shoveling through hundreds of reviews on the Internet, we came to a disappointing conclusion for Seagate - their screws are much less reliable. Yes, many of those reading these lines may well do this thanks to the use of a faithfully serving not the first five-year screw from this company, but why hope that you are lucky if you can choose a more stable option? 
By the way, we recommend that you immediately give it an increased load after buying a new drive, so you will check it under stressful conditions and if it was defective, then you will have time to take advantage of warranty service or replace a low-quality product, and if it survives this stress test without excesses, you can be almost 100% sure that it will last a long time. It must be understood that Russia is far from being the main market for computer equipment manufacturers, and then the task of finding a service center often looks almost impossible, those who have experienced sending their components abroad for repairs know very well how long and expensive it is. In general, in 2019, I personally would give my preference to WD, but this is not advertising and the choice is up to you.
External screw selection
In this case, a third is added to the two giant manufacturers - Transcend. The advantages of such gadgets are obvious - no fuss with installation in a laptop case or system unit, just connect it using one of the current connectors, we remind you that USB 3.0 should be preferred - it is compatible with USB 2.0 and can be connected to absolutely any system. 
The form factors of portable hard drives are the same as those of their older brothers, but in this case the dimensions are even more important - a compact device is much more convenient to carry with you, so if you plan to use it often outside the home, take a closer look at 2.5 inches. The speed, of course, is likely to be lower, but the ability to put a screw in a jacket pocket is priceless. By the way, since you are going to carry it with you, it would be nice to think about durability - anything happens. Such equipment often breaks down when dropped from a height of only 10-15 centimeters, and therefore a rubberized case or case is almost a must have. 
In recent years, it has become widely popular to connect ordinary hard drives as external ones using special boxes that have a USB connection to a computer, and modern system units often already have such a compartment - very convenient.
All this is good, but what about the SSD?
In recent years, SSDs have become increasingly common in storing information, they are also solid-state drives, which are sometimes mistakenly called hard drives. They are rather a large flash drive with microcircuits, because they do not have mechanical parts as in the HDDs we are used to. All data is transmitted here electronically, and SATA 2 or SATA 3 interfaces are used to connect such a device, but when buying such a powerful tool, you should get the most out of it, and therefore we recommend using a much faster PCI Express connection. 
Such drives are much more compact than their predecessors, and therefore they almost always go on sale with an adapter that will help you insert the device into the HDD slot. Despite the fact that it is much more problematic to damage SSDs, they, unfortunately, still break, and therefore reliability can hardly be attributed to the indisputable advantages of these devices today. Another drawback is the significantly higher price, and therefore not everyone who is faced with the urgent need to purchase a new hard drive will be able to afford this option.
If only a very wealthy user can purchase an SSD with a capacity of several terabytes, then small solid state drives are available to almost everyone and this opportunity must be used. The fact is that the speed of the operating system is very dependent on the physical object on which it is located, and therefore with the help of a small SSD, for example, 128 gigabytes, you can achieve incredible progress in the speed of the OS.
Just place Windows or another OS on an expensive medium, as well as a number of the programs you need most, and store the rest of the information on the HDD and you will be happy at an affordable price tag. By the way, owners of old systems should remember that this media is supported by Windows from seven and above, so you won’t be able to overclock your XP with it.
We hope that this material was useful to you and now you are presenting the sequence of actions in case you decide to upgrade the hard drive in your personal computer. Do not overly trust sales assistants in an electronics store - they have their own goals and motives, which may be far from the desire to choose the best option for you, and then keep your finger on the pulse and constantly update your knowledge about the most important components of the system unit, good luck!