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A hard drive is one of the key components of a modern PC. Storing programs and files of all kinds, the hard drive is like your computer’s ‘filing cabinet’ where all those important bits of information are stored.
However, given that modern programs and files are becoming bigger and bigger, it’s vital that you have enough storage on your computer.
Gone are the days when a handful of gigabytes would be sufficient to boot and run a computer.
That’s why here at Comet you’ll find a truly vast range of computer storage options. These span from traditional hard disc drives, through to modern, ultra-fast solid state drives.
Likewise, you’ll find storage options ranging from 1TB all the way up to a mighty 20 TB and beyond.
Our range also includes flash drives, allowing you to pop thousands of files into your pocket with ease!
Picking a hard drive for your computer involves making numerous choices. But, if you keep reading, making those choices will be a little easier (and more informed!).
Hard drives, be they of the hard disc or SSD variety are available in either internal or external formats.
Internal hard discs - as the name suggests - are designed to be installed within the case of a PC. Thus, internal hard drives are suited to scenarios where you’re either building a PC from scratch, or you’re willing to partially dismantle your PC in order to install a new hard drive.
Naturally, in both instances, it makes sense to purchase the largest possible capacity hard disc drive you can afford; this will future-proof your computer to an extent and mean you’ve got plenty of storage space for saving future games, programs, and files.
External hard drives are - yes, you’ve guessed it - designed to sit outside your PC. As a result, they tend to feature robust cases and can be connected to your PC by means of a USB cable. For many people, external hard drives are the easiest and simplest way to add additional storage capacity to their PC.
This is the most important - and possibly contentious - choice you’ll have to make when buying computer storage.
Do you want a hard disc drive (HDD) or a solid state drive (SSD)?
Until a few years ago, this wasn’t a choice you had to make at all. All storage in computers took the form of hard disc drives.
Hard disc drives are a type of non-volatile electro-mechanical data storage device. Chuck all that fancy language away, and what do we mean? Put simply, HDDs are a type of storage where an arm writes data to a spinning disc.
When you save data onto a HDD, the arm ‘writes’ data onto the disc. When you want to open a file or program that’s saved on a HDD, the arm ‘reads’ the disc.
Sounds simple, right?!
Well, it is! However, recent years have seen the emergence of solid state drives (SSDs).
SSDs store data using flash-based memory. In more technical terms, integrated circuit assemblies store data in a non-volatile fashion (meaning the data doesn’t disappear when the SSD is disconnected from power).
At the risk of oversimplifying things, the difference between HDDs and SSDs is that hard disc drives feature moving parts, whilst solid state drives do not (hence the term ‘solid state’).
As a result, SSDs tend to be much faster at reading and writing data. They’re also more robust.
So, why bother with a HDD at all? Well, until recently, SSDs were pretty expensive and only offered smaller storage capacities. HDDs were more affordable and offered loads of storage!
These days, however, there’s less of a disparity between the cost and capacity figures of HDDs and SSDs (it’s why most prebuilt PCs come with SSDs now).
What many people overlook, however, is that you don’t have to choose!
If you really want to create the ultimate home computing setup, you can install both a HDD and an SSD. For your less frequently used files and programs, you can use the HDD.
For things like your operating system and very frequently used games, programs, and files, you can use the SSD - which will offer fast boot performance.
Whether you go for a HDD or SSD (or both), you’ll need to decide upon what capacity you want.
To paraphrase, there’s no such thing as too much computer storage!
Our general guide is to buy a hard drive with the largest capacity as you can afford. After all, who wants the tedious task of having to select and delete files in order to free up space at a later date?
We realise, however, that this may not be something everyone can afford to do.
This is where context is key. The amount of storage you need largely depends on what you’ll be doing with your computer:
Shop around online, and you’ll see a vast range of different hard drive brands (and price points).
Whilst it may be tempting to skimp out on your computer storage, it really is a false economy.
Why? Because memories are priceless!
Imagine that your cheap hard drive breaks and you lose countless treasured photos and files. It can be pretty difficult to recover those things from a broken hard drive.
Likewise, what about all those high scores on your games? They could be gone in the blink of an eye when a cheap hard drive breaks.
Be sure to buy a quality hard drive from a renowned, reputable hard drive brand such as Western Digital, SanDisk or Seagate.
Sometimes it’s not feasible or practical to send files over the internet. Instead, you’ll need to physically transport them to a location.
That’s where USB sticks (also known as flash drives) come in.
Here at Comet, you’ll find flash drives of all kinds and generations, from USB Type-A 2.0 to Type-A 3.2.
Despite their diminutive size, it’s possible to buy flash drives with capacities of 256 GB (or more).
Our range of flash drives includes models from SanDisk, Kingston, Kioxia, and Samsung.
No matter what form of computer storage you’re looking for, you’ll find the best deals at Comet.
Our collection of HDDs, SSDs, and USB sticks is continually changing, with unbeatable deals and discounts popping up all the time. Why not sign up to our newsletter and be the first to know?
The fact that we offer flexible payment options, including Klarna Pay in 3 and PayPal Credit, makes our computer storage options even more of a bargain.
And, our express delivery options will ensure your new storage is with you almost as quickly as you can click ‘save’.
However, given that modern programs and files are becoming bigger and bigger, it’s vital that you have enough storage on your computer.
Gone are the days when a handful of gigabytes would be sufficient to boot and run a computer.
That’s why here at Comet you’ll find a truly vast range of computer storage options. These span from traditional hard disc drives, through to modern, ultra-fast solid state drives.
Likewise, you’ll find storage options ranging from 1TB all the way up to a mighty 20 TB and beyond.
Our range also includes flash drives, allowing you to pop thousands of files into your pocket with ease!
Choosing the right storage for your needs
Picking a hard drive for your computer involves making numerous choices. But, if you keep reading, making those choices will be a little easier (and more informed!).
Internal or external hard drive?
Hard drives, be they of the hard disc or SSD variety are available in either internal or external formats.
Internal hard discs - as the name suggests - are designed to be installed within the case of a PC. Thus, internal hard drives are suited to scenarios where you’re either building a PC from scratch, or you’re willing to partially dismantle your PC in order to install a new hard drive.
Naturally, in both instances, it makes sense to purchase the largest possible capacity hard disc drive you can afford; this will future-proof your computer to an extent and mean you’ve got plenty of storage space for saving future games, programs, and files.
External hard drives are - yes, you’ve guessed it - designed to sit outside your PC. As a result, they tend to feature robust cases and can be connected to your PC by means of a USB cable. For many people, external hard drives are the easiest and simplest way to add additional storage capacity to their PC.
Hard disc drive or solid state drive?
This is the most important - and possibly contentious - choice you’ll have to make when buying computer storage.
Do you want a hard disc drive (HDD) or a solid state drive (SSD)?
Until a few years ago, this wasn’t a choice you had to make at all. All storage in computers took the form of hard disc drives.
Hard disc drives are a type of non-volatile electro-mechanical data storage device. Chuck all that fancy language away, and what do we mean? Put simply, HDDs are a type of storage where an arm writes data to a spinning disc.
When you save data onto a HDD, the arm ‘writes’ data onto the disc. When you want to open a file or program that’s saved on a HDD, the arm ‘reads’ the disc.
Sounds simple, right?!
Well, it is! However, recent years have seen the emergence of solid state drives (SSDs).
SSDs store data using flash-based memory. In more technical terms, integrated circuit assemblies store data in a non-volatile fashion (meaning the data doesn’t disappear when the SSD is disconnected from power).
At the risk of oversimplifying things, the difference between HDDs and SSDs is that hard disc drives feature moving parts, whilst solid state drives do not (hence the term ‘solid state’).
As a result, SSDs tend to be much faster at reading and writing data. They’re also more robust.
So, why bother with a HDD at all? Well, until recently, SSDs were pretty expensive and only offered smaller storage capacities. HDDs were more affordable and offered loads of storage!
These days, however, there’s less of a disparity between the cost and capacity figures of HDDs and SSDs (it’s why most prebuilt PCs come with SSDs now).
What many people overlook, however, is that you don’t have to choose!
If you really want to create the ultimate home computing setup, you can install both a HDD and an SSD. For your less frequently used files and programs, you can use the HDD.
For things like your operating system and very frequently used games, programs, and files, you can use the SSD - which will offer fast boot performance.
Capacity
Whether you go for a HDD or SSD (or both), you’ll need to decide upon what capacity you want.
To paraphrase, there’s no such thing as too much computer storage!
Our general guide is to buy a hard drive with the largest capacity as you can afford. After all, who wants the tedious task of having to select and delete files in order to free up space at a later date?
We realise, however, that this may not be something everyone can afford to do.
This is where context is key. The amount of storage you need largely depends on what you’ll be doing with your computer:
- Regular gamer - if you’re always downloading and playing games, then you’ll want 1TB of storage as a minimum.
- Content creator - should you use your computer for things like photo or video editing, then you’ll want, as an absolute minimum, at least 512 GB of storage.
- General user - in the event that you’re just a casual computer user, browsing the web and using Office programs, then around 256 GB of storage will be sufficient.
Brand
Shop around online, and you’ll see a vast range of different hard drive brands (and price points).
Whilst it may be tempting to skimp out on your computer storage, it really is a false economy.
Why? Because memories are priceless!
Imagine that your cheap hard drive breaks and you lose countless treasured photos and files. It can be pretty difficult to recover those things from a broken hard drive.
Likewise, what about all those high scores on your games? They could be gone in the blink of an eye when a cheap hard drive breaks.
Be sure to buy a quality hard drive from a renowned, reputable hard drive brand such as Western Digital, SanDisk or Seagate.
USB sticks
Sometimes it’s not feasible or practical to send files over the internet. Instead, you’ll need to physically transport them to a location.
That’s where USB sticks (also known as flash drives) come in.
Here at Comet, you’ll find flash drives of all kinds and generations, from USB Type-A 2.0 to Type-A 3.2.
Despite their diminutive size, it’s possible to buy flash drives with capacities of 256 GB (or more).
Our range of flash drives includes models from SanDisk, Kingston, Kioxia, and Samsung.
Save on storage at Comet
No matter what form of computer storage you’re looking for, you’ll find the best deals at Comet.
Our collection of HDDs, SSDs, and USB sticks is continually changing, with unbeatable deals and discounts popping up all the time. Why not sign up to our newsletter and be the first to know?
The fact that we offer flexible payment options, including Klarna Pay in 3 and PayPal Credit, makes our computer storage options even more of a bargain.
And, our express delivery options will ensure your new storage is with you almost as quickly as you can click ‘save’.
