Very often, when finding any computing device today, you would see 4 types of storage types available: Hard Disk Drive (HDD), Hybrid Disk Drives and Solid State Drives (SDD). So which should you choose?

1) Hard Disk Drive (HDD): This is the cheapest storage option. It usually comes in big capacities of 500GB and above today, although smalller capacities are also available. Hard disk drives are used in most mainstream laptops and cheap ultrabooks. The downside is that these are usually the thick and slow compared to Solid State Drives. Also, you have to defragment your Hard Drive regularly if you want the fastest speed from your Hard disk

2) Solid State Drives (SSD): This is the fastest type of storage available. It is many times faster than a Hard Disk Drive and allows you to boot into windows and open applications extremely quickly, usually in terms of seconds. They are usually used in tablets and ultrabooks. You do not and should not defragment an SSD. The downside is that they tend to be expensive. Fortunately, their prices have been dropping the past few months. A ultrabook with an SSD usually cost around $1599.

I have personal experience with a laptop with an SSD, as i recently upgraded my own laptop (!). My laptop used to take about 40 seconds to boot to windows 8.1, but now, with an SSD, it boots in as little as 9 seconds! Applications like Adobe photoshop open at least 5x faster than when i had a HDD. Talk about fast!

3) Hybrid Disk Drives: These are essentially Hard Disk Drives with a small SSD inside. They are usually with 500GB and above Storage in HDD form and with 8 to 24 GB of SSD, which is used to speed up windows boot up times and speed up opening applications by a little. You still have to defragment your drive though. If you don’t have much cash, you may want to choose such a drive. They are usually found in $1199-1499 laptop price range

4) EMMC Drive Storage (NEW): These are essentially small SSD drive ranging from 8GB to 64GB Capacity. Installed in many budget friendly tablets and ultrabooks, They are not as fast as SSD drives, but you will usually find windows boot up times opening applications just a little faster than a HDD. However, take note that EMMC drives usually cannot be replaced by yourself if it reaches end of life. If you do not plan to fix or upgrade the device in future or don’t have much cash, you may want to choose such a drive. They are usually found in $300-1100 laptop price range

Bottomline: If you have the cash, we highly recommend a SSD for storage. But if you need larger storage capacities or don’t want to spend too much, you may consider a Hybrid Disk Drive for storage

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