Storage Recommendations for All Types of Users

World Backup Day will soon be upon us and with all the tech that’s available, the topic of storage is bound to come up sooner or later. Whether you’re a casual user, a gamer, or a creative content professional creating backups, archiving data, or designing a surveillance system, storage will be one of the key factors in your overall build. However, not all drives are created equal, so read ahead to find out what kind of drive is recommended for your undertaking.

Best Desktop Storage Drives for Everyone

In the past, storage drives featured dedicated architecture that was best suited for specific scenarios. Photographers and those working on complex tasks in Photoshop would need an incredibly fast drive so they could easily sift through their work. Video editors needed something quick to help with scrubbing through tons of data. Gaming enthusiasts used to leverage the power of hybrid drive configurations to save their digital libraries. A single 2.5” SSD would host the operating system while a 3.5” HDD would store games.

Now, things have changed dramatically. Instead of isolating each drive to specific means, they have become more universal, with the only real difference relying on the interface speed and capacity. Photographers, video editors, and gamers can all enjoy speedy performance and faster loading times thanks to these M.2 PCIe NVMe SSDs. If you want to dig into the weeds on the differences between SSDs and HDDs, check out our article on choosing the right storage for your system.

No matter the task, an M.2 NVMe PCIe SSD, such as Samsung’s 990 EVO Plus, which features a PCIe 5.0 x2 interface, will do the trick. Samsung’s 990 PRO, which is available with or without a heatsink, and operates on the PCIe 4.0 x4 interface, is still very reliable.  All of these drives can be used in your system as long as it has at least a single M.2 interface and performance is universal no matter what you are doing.

Other great M.2 SSDs include the OWC Aura Pro IV and the Lexar NM790, both of which offer great performance with scalable capacities to meet your needs. There is also my personal favorite, the WD_BLACK SN850X and the classic Seagate FireCuda 530R, which also offer variants that include heatsinks. If you aren’t looking for the fastest performance but you want reliability, the SanDisk Extreme is also a good option for casual users who only really need a drive for documents and low-priority files.

If you’re thinking of getting an SSD for the empty M.2 slot in your PS5, just make sure it supports PCIe 4.0 x4, speeds of at least 5500 MB/s, and a form factor of M.2 2230, 2242, 2260, 2280, or 22110. If you are gamer on the go, SSDs like the Seagate FireCuda 520N 2230 gives you greater space for your titles, making this one of the best storage drives for the Valve Steam Deck or the ASUS ROG Ally and many other handheld PCs.

The Best External Drives for Creators, Editors, and Gamers

External storage is incredibly important as many people use it to backup their data and store information for long-form archiving. Gaming enthusiasts tend to use external storage drives for older games. No matter what camp you fall into, there are a bunch of great external storage drives that give you the speed and reliability you need to keep your information secure.

A few great storage drives to keep your information backed up is the Samsung T7 Portable SSD for casual users looking to backup their home data. SanDisk has the Extreme Portable SSD V2 which offers fast speed in a portable and convenient form factor. For the user who finds themselves out and about, the LaCie Rugged External Hard Drive is a great option especially if you find yourself in tough environments.

What if you’re looking to backup all of your photos you recently took on your trips? Well, if you don’t trust the cloud and would rather have direct control over your pictures and move them from your mobile device to your PC, the Lexar Professional Go is a great storage solution for smartphone users. This comes as a stand-alone drive with 1TB and 2TB capacities as well as a variant that includes a USB hub for direct recording and attaching devices like gimbals and lighting arrays.

Another option available to you if you like having a compact and lightweight option is investing in an enclosure for your M.2 SSD. Devices like the Satechi UBS4 NVMe SSD Pro and the OWC Express 1M2 are both suitable for housing a M.2 SSDs up to 2280 in size. They might not be as fast as installing the storage drive directly into your motherboard, but these are great options for folks who want to convert one of their drives into a portable one.

Best Storage Drives for NAS and RAID Arrays

This is where drives suited for 24/7, always-on environments come into play, which are especially useful for NAS and RAID arrays. WD offers the Red Pro Series, which is available as a 3.5" hard drive and acts as the company’s top-tier drive. Their mid-tier option is WD Red Plus, which reaches 5400 rpm opposed to the Red Pro’s 7200 rpm.

 Seagate also has a big arsenal for this area, which includes the IronWolf Pro 3.5" HDD. There is also the WD UltraStar DC and the Seagate Exos drives, which are designed for enterprise, hyperscale, and data center use.

Surveillance, or I Spy with My Little Eye

Hoping to catch Santa coming down the chimney this year? You’ll need one heck of a surveillance system, plus a drive that can keep up. WD Purple and Purple Pro drives have firmware and caching algorithms for write-intensive applications, while Seagate’s SkyHawk and SkyHawk AI drives also fill the bill, depending on the total number of drive bays your array has and how many cameras you have. Just as with data storage and archiving, there’s no reason WD UltraStar and Seagate Exos drives can’t be used here.

Final Thoughts

When it comes to picking the right storage drive, there are a ton of options and multiple ways to store your applications and files on your device as well as off your devices. Keeping your essentials saved for use down the road is incredibly important. Have you thought about backing up your information or are you looking around for a new drive? Make sure you hit up the links above to check out additional information about each item. If you have any questions or comments, please leave them below and we’ll do our best to get to them as soon as possible.