Laptop vs Desktop Storage

[Andre01]

So I'm buying an SSD and I'm not sure how big it should be. I was wondering, if I'm currently using about 400GB out of a 500GB of a serial ATA Hard Drive in my MacBook is that an accurate measurement for how much I'm gonna need in my Desktop. How much extra space would I need? For example I'm sure the Operating system probably takes more space on a Desktop as opposed to a laptop in general. Factoring lots of other little things like more complex settings,etc do you think I should go for a 512GB or something a bit higher.

 

Feel free to use this as a general discussion as to how Desktops and Laptops handle data differently.

[Bl00dgod]

most people with desktops have the space for some extra HDD's as data graves for music, pictures, your 2TB steam library and other content you have, while most laptops only have 2 or 3 slots for storage

you could go with a 500GB SSD on a desktop too without any problems and store your data on an external HDD/SSD

 

last time i had to think about this was when a mate wanted to replace his old laptop with 300GB HDD storage and asked about how much he might need with his new laptop, he got an 500GB crucial BX <placenumberhere> SSD and an 1TB HDD

as soon as you have more storage you'll see that its easy stuffed with data

[Senzelian]

Desktops and Laptops are both PCs. They can run the exact same hardware and software. Only the form factor is different.

 

But because desktops run often longer than notebooks and are capeable of using more drives and stronger hardware, they usually need more space for important work.

3.5'' drives are also less expensive than 2.5'' drives.

So it makes sense to get higher capacity drives for a desktop PC.

[Andre01]

Thanks for the help guys

[PrimeSonic]

Ever since I got a NAS, everything changed.

 

Now, all we have that is regular media (pictures, music, videos, some documents) end up in the network drive and it can be accessed by any of our PCs in the network.

 

So now, my actual PC doesn't need mass storage anymore and I can work just fine with small, fast solid-state storage where I mostly only keep applications and anything I might actually be working on. Everything else goes straight to the network drive without taking up precious solid-state space.

[Captain_WD]

~snip~

 

Hey there Andre01,

 

The OS on your desktop with the updates would take up about 35GB-40GB. Everything else depends on what you are going to put there. Have in mind that things such as media and gaming gain little to none from the SSD's performance and most people prefer to have rather smaller SSDs for the OS and more demanding programs and HDDs for the media and most games in their desktops. I would suggest going with that plan. 

 

Feel free to ask if you happen to have questions!

 

Captain_WD.

[Andre01]

 

Hey there Andre01,

 

The OS on your desktop with the updates would take up about 35GB-40GB. Everything else depends on what you are going to put there. Have in mind that things such as media and gaming gain little to none from the SSD's performance and most people prefer to have rather smaller SSDs for the OS and more demanding programs and HDDs for the media and most games in their desktops. I would suggest going with that plan. 

 

Feel free to ask if you happen to have questions!

 

Captain_WD.

 

So can you give me a quick list of what benefits from an SSD and what doesn't?

 

Thanks

[Captain_WD]

~snip~

 

Well the list can be pretty long and the same general thing can be on both sides. 

For example gaming - games generally don't rely on the storage's performance for anything else but the loading times and autosaves so the FPS and graphics won't be affected at all and thus it will be in the list of the things that won't benefit much from the SSD. On the other side, though, you have some AAA games with really heavy and long loading times as well as the need to load huge texture packs while in-game (MMOs and open-world games) and they would have their loading times and the way the world loads much faster and smoother (still wouldn't influence FPS or graphics) so this owuld fall into the things that would benefit from the SSD's performance. 

Media such as music, photos, movies, etc won't benefit at all since it is not storage-demanding at all. 

The OS and some storage-intensive programs that require faster storage (exporting for example or editing programs that work with pretty huge files before saving them - RAW images, 4K videos, etc) would really benefit from the faster access times and higher transfer speeds.

 

I would suggest to make a list of the things that you will have on your computer, check online if each of them really benefits from being on a SSD or not and then decide on the exact capacity and if you really want a SSD.  

 

Captain_WD.