Games, movies, photos – you name it – everything is rapidly increasing in quality every year. But with higher quality comes higher storage requirements.
When a single game requires100GB+of space, your storage is bound to max out in no time. And if your PC is running low on space, it will undoubtedly lead to problems down the road – either in the form of below-par performance or system error due to low disk space.
So, in this article, we’ve compiled the best ways to increase and optimize your PC’s storage capacity.
Add More Storage with New Storage Media
Hard Disks have been the go-to storage medium for decades, but most users are starting to switch to SSDs or Cloud Storage now. In certain situations, USB Drives or WiFi Drives can be great options as well. You’ll find all the necessary details regarding these in the sections below.
Install a New Hard Drive / SSD
Hard drive prices have gone down significantly and become increasingly more affordable in the last few years. If you’re looking for raw storage space, a classicSATA HDD(Hard Disk Drive) will give you the most bang for your buck.
If you want both storage and performance though, nothing beats an SSD (Solid State Drive). Specifically, the latestPCIe 4.0 M.2 SSDsusually range between 250GB to 2TB in terms of storage capacity, with blazing read-write speeds of over 5 GBPS!
In either case, this buyer’s guide on the Best Hard Drives will be useful if you decide to snag one up.
How to Add New HDD/SSD to Your PC
Installing a new SSDonto your system is very simple. WithPCIe and NVMe SSDs, you just plug them into the appropriate slots on the motherboard.
Here are the steps you should follow for a SATA HDD/SSD:
If it still doesn’t show up, check out our article onSSD Is Not Showing Up in Bios.
External Hard Disk / SSD
Laptops these days keep getting smaller and slimmer. This is great in terms of portability but it makes upgrading and adding new parts a nightmare. This isn’t necessarily a laptop-specific issue either.
