Certain drives will offer a better bang for the buck if you just want the extra capacity, or you may require a lower RPM drive to avoid the noise of faster drives. You will want specialized drives for NAS, surveillance/DVR/NVR, raw storage for media and backups, or for heavier workloads. When choosing one of the best HDDs, you should balance these factors with your intended usage and, of course, around your budget. More cache is, of course, better, but if it comes as a trade-off - for example, instead of having a support service - then you should consider your priorities carefully when making a purchase. This amount of cache generally scales with the capacity of the drive. HDDs additionally have an amount of DRAM to help temporarily cache data.

Power draw, heat, and noise are factors related to performance. There are also variable RPM drives that try to achieve the best of both worlds. Lower RPM drives tend to be quieter and more efficient, while higher RPM drives have better performance. The RPM value impacts sequential transfers as well as random access latency. We only recommend conventional magnetic recording (CMR) drives and not shingled (SMR), as the latter comes with performance and operational caveats.įor performance, HDDs are also often gauged by rotations per minute (RPM), which is usually a direct indicator of performance. There are a few potential performance pitfalls when buying a new HDD, and the type of recording technology is one of the most important factors. If you're shopping for an HDD, you’re probably looking for the lowest possible cost per TB, but you should consider performance and support for certain applications. The ubiquitous SATA interface is used for desktop PCs, and most motherboards have ample available ports, which makes expansion easy. Otherwise, your computer case’s ability to house a certain number of 3.5” drives might be your primary limitation. If you need 2.5”, your options are more limited, especially for capacity. It is important to be aware of the drive’s form factor, with 3.5” being the most common for the best HDDs (this is the only type we cover).

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