Choosing the Proper Storage for your Custom PC

One of the most critical components, in my opinion, in any custom PC build is storage; and if you ask anyone who knows me, they will tell you that I absolutely advocate for more storage, even if you don’t ever use it all. Why, might you ask? Well, there a number of reasons: games are growing ever bigger, home server custom PCs are becoming increasingly popular, and you never know when you are going to need a vast amount of storage. With prices of these items going up as well, it is critical to make sure that your custom PC or custom gaming PC is ready to go on the storage front.

First things first: HDD or SSD?

The first question you need to identify is your storage needs. The classic combo of an HDD and SSD has yet to fail and is completely viable; however, you will need to weigh things such as loading speed of applications, how much space is intended on being used, and costs. If you are running something like a media server, I would recommend an SSD for the OS and server applications and then an HDD for the media files. I, personally, have 12TBs attached to my server for my media files (and trust me, it is not enough).

However, in recent years I have seen customers who purchase custom PC solutions from AVADirect move more towards straight SSD(s) for their needs, and understandably so. While we are in a memory and NAND shortage, for a time 4TB SSDs were becoming increasingly affordable and would typically satisfy many consumers’ needs. While that is still viable, in terms of cost, not so much.

How much storage should YOU invest in?

Well, my first answer is as much as you can fit into your PC. Literally. However, that is me and I am always running out of space for my custom PC needs. It really boils down to you what you are going to do with your gaming PC or general use PC. For many consumers, a 1TB will more than suffice for their needs. If you were to ask me (seriously) I would recommend a 2TB SSD paired with at least a 4TB HDD. Why? A 2TB SSD will allow you to install an OS without a lot of space being taken away from storage needs, allowing you to install the PC games you are playing and not having to move things around often, and with a 4TB HDD you can install other PC games you might play in the future and simply move them over to your SSD without having to re-download them. While we do live in the age of blazing fast internet, it is a good failsafe if you were ever without internet and wanted to play something and needed to move it over. You could always play the title from the HDD, but once you load a demanding title from an SSD you won’t ever go back.

Storage has always been a favorite component of mine. While I use up space quicker than I obtain it, storage management is always a fun task as well. I would rather have more than not enough. So, what kind of storage solutions are you after? If you are in the market for a new custom PC build, or new custom gaming PC build, be sure to reach out to our sales team and discuss the many options AVADirect has to offer.