This is Nadia from VRLA Tech here-
What are you doing?
[To cameraman] You're just gonna let this happen?
Hey everyone, this is Nadia from VRLA Tech and today we're talking pc storage. Often
somewhat incorrectly referred to as memory, your storage is the place on your computer
where all of your files live; your games, your media, even your operating system.
So when it comes to storage, there are a few different options on the types of drives that you
can use and they all come with their own benefits and drawbacks. We'll cover those, as well as show
you how to best use multiple drives in your system. So sit back, relax, and let's explain.
[VRLA Tech Explains intro music]
In front of me are the three types of internal storage drives. An HDD, which stands for a hard
disk drive, an SSD which stands for solid state drive, and an M.2 NVMe which is a Non-Volatile
Memory Express. All three of these drives perform the same functions, just in different ways.
So first we'll start with the grandfather of them all the HDD.
Cut.
[Blac Chyna: Cut the cameras, deadass.]
[Music]
Before we get into the pros and cons we should understand how hard drives work. We tend to think
of HDDs as the bulky storage option, but when they were introduced by IBM in the 50's the drives
were nearly 2 feet tall. The way those giant drives operate is essentially the same as today,
just on a much smaller scale. Inside this housing is a rotating disc that's coated in
a magnetic material, and then there's an arm that reads the magnetic material with a magnetic head.
And that's how you read and write data on this system. It looks kind of like a record player,
and they almost work the same way. This arm writes data by moving back and forth across
the magnetized surface, creating patterns of left and right magnetization that translate
into binary code. Whenever you access files on a hard drive, the disc rapidly spins and
the arm moves around and reads the data and translates it to the computer; like a record.
[Dead Or Alive: Like a record baby, right round round round]
Given the way that these drives write and read data, their major drawback is speed.
The platter can only spin so fast, even on the higher speed drives.
On the positive side they come in much larger capacities than other drives, and for way cheaper.
Now we'll take a look at the 2.5 inch SSD, which stands for Solid State Drive. instead
of the spinning discs, these drives use semiconductor cells to store data. Most
SSDs utilize flash memory, a technology invented by brought to market by Toshiba in the 80's.
[You Spin Me Round by Dead or Alive plays]
SSDs combine flash memory with a controller that acts as a brain, and it distributes read and
writing duties across the flash blocks. Because it has no moving parts, SSDs tend to be much faster
and more reliable than hard drives, but also a lot smaller. On the other hand, they tend to
have lower capacities than traditional hard drives and they're more expensive per gig.
If you've been following so far, here's where the nomenclature gets- [to Shafeel]: Should
I say nomenclature? I shouldn't say it, that's complicated. [to camera] Here's where the names
get confusing. In front of me is an M.2 NVMe drive. As I mentioned earlier NVMe stands for
Non-Volatile Memory Express, which is a brand name for a technology that essentially operates the
way- it optimizes the way that SSDs function. Most commonly you'll see these M.2 and NVMe drives.
[M.2 clatters on table]
[Nadia laughs]
These are a more compact Solid State Drive that uses NVMe technology to offer high read
and write speeds- higher over the 2.5 inch SSDs that is. They slot into a special M.2
header on your motherboard which aren't standard yet, however NVMe drives can
also come in the form of PCI-express cards or even 2.5 drives- M.2 is just super popular.
[Whispering] You son of a- [Shafeel laughs off screen]
Of course the M.2 NVMes are the smallest and fastest drives that we've looked at today,
but they're also the most expensive by a pretty wide margin. In addition, they're
not as accessible as 2.5 inch SSDs as M.2 headers aren't standard on motherboards yet, and might not
be present on a budget build. Hopefully all of that makes sense so far. These drives all have
pros and cons and it comes down to personal preference in most cases, but in our opinion
the best setup is to use a combination of SSDs and hard drives to get a well-rounded storage setup.
[You Spin Me Round by Dead Or Alive plays]
Almost all of the pcs that we sell will come with both an SSD and a hard drive. On the
higher end builds, it'll be an M.2 NVMe and a hard drive. So in order to view your drives,
we're going to open up the file explorer. And down here, after you click "This PC"
you'll see the devices and drives section. So there should be a C: drive- in our builds that's
always going to be the SSD. That's the main drive, or otherwise known as the boot drive,
and this is where we install windows. That's for a reason. I mentioned earlier that SSDs are much
faster than HDDs, and that's true. So, using them as your boot drive means that your general tasks
in windows will be so much faster, and it also means that when you boot up your computer from
shutting down it's gonna start up faster. The HDD, in the case of our computers, are set up for mass
storage- meaning you can use it to install lots of big files like games, or movies, or whatever.
If there's specific applications that you use a lot, you should install them to your C:
drive- the SSD, because they'll open faster than if they were installed so the HDD. However
usually they come in smaller capacities, like I said earlier. So it's it's a balance between
having the mass storage and having things that open super super quick.
So you have to just pick and choose where you want your files to live, depending on how frequently
you use them. So by default any new programs that you install or files that you download,
they'll automatically go to your C: drive because it's your main drive. However, you can
manually move stuff by just simply clicking and dragging it to your hard drive. I already- I alr-
I already did this once in a previous take so that's that's why it says
that. They're already there. But it's- you get the idea. You can just click and drag
and bring it over, boom done- okay. But then you have to remember that you want to delete the file
off of where it's living on your C: drive so that you don't have duplicates of everything.
Unless you're trying to back stuff, up in which case, yeah, you do want duplicates of everything.
Computers are complicated you guys. Okay so now we have a flash drive plugged into the computer
you can see right here um it shows up as an E:, that's going to be our removable flash drive.
Before we move on I just wanted you guys to take a quick look
at the capacities of the drives. They're both listed as having 930 something gigabytes,
even though they're both 1 terabyte drives. And that's because when you use a drive in windows,
after you format it, the formatting takes up some of the space on the hard drive.
We just want to do an example of how to install something directly to
your secondary hard drive. So when you're installing a file and you want it to install
to a specific drive, you have to look for the destination location. You have to pay
attention to that you can't just click through and hit next next next next next okay install.
Because I know that's how you install stuff. I know it is.
But on this- [Shafeel offscreen:] Destination Unknown
[Nadia mimics the tune of Destination Unknown over the actual song]
We're very serious computer technicians here, okay?
So when you see the screen "Destination Location" it says where should- you know in this case it's
Furmark that's a software used to stress as machines- but if it's a video game or whatever
it is that you want to install, it will say like 'where should we install this'? You click browse,
and then you want to pop out of your local disk. Right? So you don't want to install it to the
C: our C: is almost full. We want to install it to our HDD, and so we select it and we hit ok.
And then we can go through click click next next install.
Now we finish it. And now, if we go check in our HDD- oh look it's installed. Wow! Right there. No
extra copies, no deleting and dragging and any of that extra stuff. It's way easier to just
install it to the correct drive out of the gate. But if you don't there are always ways to fix it
in the end so don't worry. It doesn't even matter. In the end- in the end, it doesn't even matter.
[Linkin Park's In The End starts]
We made it, and boy were there a lot of acronyms along the way. We hope that this video helped
you clear up any confusion you might have about pc storage and how to best utilize it in your
system. If you learned something from this video give us a thumbs up. And if you're not already,
please subscribe. You can see our full line of pcs at www.vrlatech.com and if
you have any questions or suggestions for future episodes, leave us a comment below. As always,
if you have any immediate questions or concerns you can always contact us through email or phone.
Thanks for watching and we'll see you next time.
Yeah!
[Music]