disksSSD vs HDD: which should you buy?
Solid-state drives (SSDs) are faster; mechanical hard drives (HDDs) are cheaper per terabyte. That single sentence covers 90% of the decision — but the details matter depending on what you're storing.
Speed
An SSD has no moving parts, so it reads and writes data far faster than a spinning HDD. A SATA SSD is roughly 4–5× quicker than a hard drive for everyday tasks; an NVMe SSD can be 20–30× faster. If a drive holds your operating system or applications, an SSD is the single biggest speed upgrade you can make.
Cost per terabyte
This is where hard drives still win decisively. At the time of writing, a 3.5" desktop HDD costs a fraction per terabyte of an equivalent SSD. For bulk storage — media libraries, backups, archives — HDDs remain the value choice. Our tables rank every drive by real price per terabyte so you can see the gap for yourself.
Reliability
SSDs have no mechanical parts to fail and shrug off knocks, which makes them ideal for laptops and anything portable. HDDs can last many years in a stable desktop or NAS but are more vulnerable to physical shock. Whichever you choose, remember: no single drive is a backup. Keep at least two copies of anything you care about.
What to buy
- Boot drive / apps / games: NVMe or SATA SSD.
- Bulk storage & backups: 3.5" HDD — best £/TB.
- Laptop upgrade: 2.5" SSD or M.2 SSD.
- Portable storage: an external SSD for speed, or external HDD for capacity.