Storage

Hard disk drives (HDDs) or solid state drives (SSD) are used for storing masses of data in your system. The HHD mechanical drives are slower than SSDs, but have the benefit of coming in much larger capacities and are cheaper – you can now get 12TB in a single drive HDD. Internal drives come in two main form factors: 3.5in, which you typically use in desktop PCs, and 2.5in, which are usually for laptops if they do not have SSD support, though a range of convertor brackets are also available. Consumer drives typically connect to the system via a SATA cable whereas drives destined for servers sometimes use what is known as a SAS connection.