Hard drive configuration choices

Hi guys, my new laptop has a 2.5" HDD bay and two M.2 SATA slots. I'm having a hard time deciding between two configuration options that I'll do with aftermarket components.

1. Two 128GB M.2 SSDs in RAID 0 + 1TB SSHD
2. One 250GB M.2 SSD + 1TB 7200RPM HDD with 64GB SSD cache

Basically, I'm wondering if anyone is still advocating for the caching option, it seems to be an obsolete choice nowadays. Thanks!

 

1) Just go with a single 500GB M.2 SSD for now. Just because you have two M.2 slots, doesn't mean you immediately need to fill both M.2 slots on Day 1.
2) Put your OS / games / apps on your M.2 SSD. Use your 2.5" SATA drive for bulk storage (photos, videos, music, pr0n, etc).

3) You are correct that hybrid / caching HDDs are pointless these days. And it is even more pointless if you are using that 2.5" SATA drive for bulk storage. I'd actually recommend that you buy a 5400rpm 1TB or 2TB 2.5" SATA drive, and not a 7200rpm drive. Bulk media content doesn't depend at all on speed (a 4GB BluRay rip MKV will play back equally well on a slow 5400rpm drive, or the worlds fastest SSD). And a 5400rpm drive will consume less power than a 7200rpm drive, which will mean less heat and a bit more battery life.

 

Yeah as said above
just get an m2 ssd in your preferred size and a 5400rpm hdd for games, music, movies etc

 

In most situations, I'd go with fewer components if possible to improve reliability. RAID 0 doubles the chances of failure since the data is striped across two drives in your hypothetical case; if one drive fails, you lose everything. Drive failure is a valid concern with M.2 SSD's since they tend to heat up quite a bit under load, which by itself isn't an issue but the problem lies in cooling; M.2 slots typically are not in a well-cooled location.

If you can avoid it, don't pay extra for the 'SSHD' drives. I'm convinced that naming convention is to fool lay people into thinking it's an SSD. I've reviewed many notebooks with the SSHD aka hybrid hard drives and will say with confidence that they are indeed pointless as @kent1146 so aptly termed them; there's no perceptible performance difference vs. a conventional hard drive. Nonetheless, hard drives are still quite practical and economical for storage purposes. Personally I use a 120GB SSD as my OS/programs drive and a secondary hard drive for storing data - my documents, pictures &c. It has been working out great. Here's a DIY we published that shows you how to map your data to a secondary storage drive.

Single M.2 250GB + 1TB hard drive gets my vote.

 

adrian5683, SSHD is only good as a system drive against HDD, otherwise absolutely pointless.

 

I'd go with option 2 for the reason Chaz mentioned - two drives in RAID 0 doubles the chances of a failure. And the SSDs are very likely already so fast that you wouldn't notice a speed difference by having RAID 0.

 

Option 2 here.. RAIDing SSD's is pointless IMO... SSD's are quite fast and M2 ones especially..