Hard Drive and SSD in Laptop vs Just an SSD in Laptop

Hi, I am planning on installing an SSD on a laptop, but I am debating the pros and cons of keeping the OEM hard drive in the laptop as opposed to removing the hard drive from the laptop. I'm probably going to get a 256GB-512GB sized SSD and I don't particularly need that much storage on my laptop but not having to carry around an external drive in the case that I do need more storage later on does have some merits. I've also heard that not having a hard drive in the laptop would slightly bring down the temperatures. I am also considering how much movement and abuse a hard drive in a laptop can withstand. Can you guys help me figure out whether it is worth keeping a hard drive in the laptop or not?

 

How much space do you require? A SSD should run cooler then a HDD but I will have to leave it for someone whom has a SSD after using a HDD to see what they say for sure on this one? Trust me one may say they don't need much room but video and pic and music can take up space faster then you think now days. Laptop some mid price have only one storage bay and larger laptops have two storage bays that can hold either 2 HDD or 2 SSD and have one be main and secondary drive to where you can off load your work and data to should the main ever go out. SSD would probably withstand the impact more then a HDD as it has moving parts susceptible to G-forces more because of its mechanical design. And how much capacity is your current drive? If it is 500gig I would say that should be fairly good for now but should it become your main drive that will depend alot on the programs you will run and use on it and how much space those files use.

 

I never noticed any non-trivial temperature differences between having a HDD only, SSD only, and SSD + HDD setup in my primary laptop. So if you want the extra storage space, go for both, though if it's not that important (or if you want to increase shock resistance in your laptop) go for just the SSD.

 

Shouldn't be a problem unless you cant stand any vibration or want to squeeze a few minutes battery life. I personally commute with a few different machines with spinner in a high school style(as in no special protection) backpack and never have problems.

A impact enough to damage the hdd would probably damage the chassis at the same time.

 

If you never use the machine in an unstable environment, just move it around, there is nothing to worry about.

If you do need the system to operate in an unstable environment, avoid HDDs.