I plan on getting a laptop for university, I would like to get an internal HDD in the ideal world, but I've been looking at more and more comparisons all of the time, well I've found one deal where I can get a laptop with a 240GB SSD which costs just as much as it having a 1TB SSHD; if I do end up going for the SSD option, I want to know, how big of a performance difference is there with an internal HDD and an external HDD, I'd only use the external HDD for storing files on, nothing more, nothing less, it would just be used to store my work.
Would it be a better idea to get the laptop having the SSD installed and buy an external HDD or would it be better for me to get the 1TB SSHD?
I used a notebook with a 500GB internal HDD for nearly three years without using more than 3/5 of its capacity. For backup storage you could use external HDDs, via USB3.0 there shouldn´t be any problems concerning transfer speeds. Because it is more capacity intern, I would go with the SSHD.
I use an external caddy with my system for HDDs as I only use SSDs in the case. No problem with copying data to and from and even from the caddy to another USB storage device. USB 3.0 has plenty of capacity you don't notice the difference.
I have a USB external disk with a reasonably modern 2TB disk and I get about 80-90MB/s transfer speed. Which is probably about what you'd get internally but I only have SSDs in my laptops.
You could always find a laptop which has two hard drive slots so you can have both an SSD and mechanical hard drive.
Having said that SSHDs are pretty decent and if you care more about convenience than performance that would be a good option.
I've looked up the speed difference between sata and USB 3.0, there was next to nothing in terms of speed/performance difference. Nothing that you'd notice in the real world at least, I mean you might notice it if you're copying and pasting an insane amount of data, otherwise, you wouldn't notice any difference.
I think I'll end up with a similar setup as you, my friend, I think it would be a better idea to make use of a USB 3.0 based device.
I am also thinking about getting a laptop with a 240GB SSD and a 1TB HDD, which is the perfect machine for me, personally. That way I have internal storage, and plenty of it, in addition to the fact that I could still make use of an external hard drive just to back up my data. It seems like a sensible idea to buy a laptop with both, an SSD and an internal HDD. I care a lot about both convenience and performance, which is my issue. But there's not a HUGE price difference with me having an SSHD over a HDD and an SSD, so I think the SSD as well as the HDD seems like the better solution. I mean it's a £40 difference can I really kick up a fuss about £40 for all that extra storage?
There are 3.5 inch enclosures that have LAN connectivity. Something like the WD MyCloud. That would reduce cable clutter at your desk. And for speed sensitive tasks: Gigabit ethernet should be fast enough.
But I need something that I can connect to when I don't have the luxury of connecting to a network, in addition to that, my home network is so weak, I don't mind having an additional cable laying around.
I appreciate your suggestion, but a wired device is fine for me, and as far as cable clutter goes, mine is like a neat but messy bundle, it's all in one heap, I've wrapped cables around a support beam on my desk, it works and it doesn't look super messy, but at the same time, it doesn't look like something you'd find on: www.reddit.com/r/CableManagement/
It's odd to explain, it's neat and messy at the same time, I guess the best way of saying it is that it's all tucked away, hidden from view, I could easily do a better job and do each cable individually, but that's a fair bit of time just to make it look pretty.
If you want to cheap out on the whole deal you could get a laptop with a 1TB HDD (or 500GB, whatever is the cheapest option) and buy the SSD seperate. That is often cheaper. Swap the HDD and the SSD and put the HDD in an external case.
The reasoning behind it is this: 1) Laptop SSD upgrades are overpriced 2) Not every Laptop has a SSD option, leading to limited selection 3) Nearly all of the notebooks have the 2.5 inch drive easily accessible
That doesn't sound like a bad idea at all, it's for sure something to think about, but to be fair, if I were to buy a laptop from PC Specialist, they could have an SSD in there without a HDD and it wouldn't be a total rip off either, it is equal for the setup I'm looking at, to have a 240GB SSD and a 1TB HDD, so you can see which option I'd rather there.
There always seems to be an SSD tax on pre-installed drives!
I have noticed a trend on some laptops to bury the drive bay either under the keyboard (and the keyboards are part of the upper case which all has to come off to access it) or under the bottom case with no access door. Even so after removing 20 or so screws and using a plastic wedge to prize the case apart it's still not to arduous usually.
If it was me in your shoes I'd just buy a hard drive candy and put a 1tb hdd, caddies function similarly to a hard drive Bay, except they just sit by themselves and you can just plug a USB 3.0 cable into it to transfer data to and from your laptop, that's what I'd do.