Computer Shopper – September 2019

58 SEPTEMBER 2019 |COMPUTERSHOPPER|ISSUE 379

STORAGE

SYNOLOGYDiskStationDS418j

★★★★★

£291•www.broadbandbuyer.com

ADATASD600Q480GB

★★★★★

£60•www.alternate.co.uk

When atiny two-bayNAS

won’t cut it, the fast,

high-capacityDiskStation DS418j

is an excellentupgrade,especiallyas it can automaticallyconvertold

hard disks to be compatiblewith this NAS’s hardwareand features.

Put aside your fe

about external

SSDs being too

expensivecomparedto hard disks

–this 480GB drive is excellentval ,

and decentlyquick.

3.5inHARDDISKBAYS(FREE)4(4)•NETWORKING1x10/100/1,000Ethernet•DLNAMEDIA

SERVERYes•PRINTSERVERYes•DIMENSIONS184x168x230mm•WEIGHT2.21kg•

WARRANTYTwoyearsRTB•DETAILSwww.synology.com•PARTCODEDS418j•

FULLREVIEWJan2018

CAPACITY480GB•COSTPERGIGABYTE£0.13p•INTERFACEUSB3•CLAIMEDREAD440MB/s

• CLAIMEDWRITE430MB/s•WARRANTYThreeyearsRTB•DETAILSwww.adata.com•
  PARTCODEASD600Q-480GU31-CBL•FULLREVIEWAug2019

SAMSUNG970EvoPlus500GB

★★★★★

£100•www.amzn.to/2CrstZB

Asignificant

writespeed

upgradehelps make the 970 Evo Plus asuperlatively

speedyM.2 SSD,and at prices much lower than the original970 Evo’s

equivalent capacities.

CAPACITY500GB•COSTPERGIGABYTE£0.20p•INTERFACEM.2/NVMe•CLAIMEDREAD

3,500MB/s•CLAIMEDWRITE3,300MB/s•WARRANTYFiveyearsRTB•DETAILS

http://www.samsung.com/uk•PARTCODEMZ-V7S500BW•FULLREVIEWMay2019

SAMSUNGPortableSSDX51TB

★★★★★

£418•www.amzn.to/2DNc17x

Forwhen you

absolutely need to

shift files as quickly

as possible,there’s the X5. Its use of

the Thunderbolt3interface makes it

the fastest external SSD ever.

CAPACITY1TB•COSTPERGIGABYTE£0.42p•INTERFACEThunderbolt3•

WARRANTYThreeyearsRTB•DETAILSwww.samsung.com/uk•

PARTCODEMU-PB1T0B/WW•FULLREVIEWDec2018

INTELOptaneMemory32GB

★★★★★

£55•www.currys.co.uk

An interestingtwist

on M.2 SSDs,

OptaneMemoryisn

so much adedicated storage drive as

large cache foryour existinghard disk,

acceleratingits read speeds to NVMe levels at amuch lower price.

CAPACITY32GB•PRICEPERGIGABYTE£1.72•INTERFACEM.2/NVMe•WARRANTYFiveyears

RTB•DETAILSwww.intel.com•PARTCODEMEMPEK1W032GAXT•FULLREVIEWSep2017

sn’t

as a

isk

y

of

it

01

Abasic 1TB internal hard disk should

cost around£40. This will be fast

enoughforgeneral use and will provide

enoughstorage formost users.

Make sure the hard disk you choosehas

the appropriateinterface type foryour PC.

Most hard disks and solid-statedrives

(SSDs)use the SATA3interface,which

enablesfaster speedsthan the older SATA2.

Pretty much every motherboardreleasedin

recent years will have multipleSATA3ports,

allowingyou to connectseveral storage

drives at once.

02

SSDs can make the most of SATA3’s

high bandwidthforfast file transfers.

Theyuse flash memorysimilar to that found

in USB flash drives, and althoughtheytend

Choosing an... Internal harddisk

to provide less capacitythan mechanical

hard disks, they’re significantlyfaster.More

expensiveSSDs use the NVMe standard,

which is even faster than SATA3, but require

an M.2 slot on the motherboard.

03

Buy ahard disk that provides more

capacitythan you think you need, as

your storage requirementsare likely to grow.

A2TB disk strikes the best balancebetween

capacityand low cost per gigabyte.

04

If you want more disk space or you

want to protect your data against

disk failure,think about buying several hard

disks to createaRAID array. These use

multiplehard disks to createone large

logical disk with better performance,orto

duplicateyour data forbetter protection.

RAID arrays requirehard disks of the same

size.Intheory,theycan be from different

manufacturers,but it’s better to buy identical

disks if you can.

05

Ahard disk’s spindlespeed

determineshow quicklyit can

transfer data. Aspindle speed of 7,200rpm

is commonin desktop drives and is fast

enoughformost purposes.Desktop hard

disks with 5,400rpmspindlespeedsare

quiteslow but use less power and generate

less heat and noise.

To strike the best balancebetween

speed and storage capacity,use an SSD as

your system disk and store your files on a

larger mechanicaldisk.

ADATAXPGSX8200Pro1TB

★★★★★

£129•www.cclonline.com

The Adata XPG

SX8200Pro

is outrageously

good value forthe performanceit delivers.It’s as fast as or faster

than top-tier SSDs from Samsungand WD,but costs farless

across all its capacityoptions.

CAPACITY1TB•COSTPERGIGABYTE£0.13p•INTERFACEM.2/NVMe•WARRANTYFiveyears

RTB•DETAILSwww.xpg.com•PARTCODEASX8200PNP-1TT•FULLREVIEWApr2019

480GB

fears

ks

alue,

NEW

ENTRY