Which storage drives should I upgrade to?

Hey!

I'm working on tuning my MSI GS63VR-001 (6700HQ), and I'd like to expand its storage space. It shipped with a 128GB M.2 SSD (I believe it's SATA) and a 1TB HDD, and I would like for both drives to be larger.

I haven't gotten into a routine/workflow yet, but I'd like to start recording my ranked games in League of Legends at 1080p, 60fps. Eventually, I'll have network storage at home to archive the footage on but occasionally I'll need to be able to store ~20+ games worth of footage (assumed 40 minutes ea.) before I can dump the files onto the NAS. (Travel.) I don't have a good estimate of how much space this will take up and I haven't figured out exactly how I want to record my games. This can be saved to the HDD, and if I will be doing any editing on the laptop, I could move a few clips at a time to the SSD.

Besides that, I'd like to be able to store a few games on the SSD. Something like League, a few small Steam games, Overwatch, and maybe one AAA title or heavily modded Skyrim. It'd be nice to have room for miscellaneous applications on the SSD, too, but I doubt it's hard to squeeze like Google Chrome or whatever web browser in. I think 250GB to 512GB is the range I'm looking at here.

Regarding the HDD, I do use this machine for work and need to be able to store (compressed) image files for a few different computers. This shouldn't take up more than 500GB to 1TB, but basically I want to have 1TB I can dedicate to work stuff. I think I'm looking at something in the 2TB to 4TB range, but I'm not sure how to estimate how much space my recorded games will take up. Or if a HDD can write fast enough to record at 1080p, 60fps?

Do you have any suggestions for HDDs or SSDs? There's a lot of sites that seem to list off a few drives and call one their favorite, but I never feel like they actually compare anything... In my experience, it's hard to find reviews or comparisons or write-ups on 2.5" HDDs. I don't think I need the very fastest drives, but I obviously would enjoy snappier drives than slower ones. I don't have an exact budget in mind, but spending less than ~$500 total would be nice, since that's about what I saved off the cost of a new GS63VR with the refurbished unit I picked up.

 

Check what size hard drives your machine supports - some of the larger capacity drives are thicker and don't fit in notebooks. I believe 9.5 and 12.5 mm are the most common, with some slim drives measuring 7.5 mm thick. I'm also not sure if there are 9.5mm options for >2TB of capacity (more thickness = more room for additional platters).


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Good call on checking thickness...

I looked online and couldn't find any info, so I called MSI's support. The tech I spoke to couldn't find anything but was able to point me to their part number for the hard drive. He said, "That's all I got, partner!" Haha

It's a Seagate-Samsung drive, and it's 9.5mm thick, so I guess we know I can fit drives at least that big. I'll try opening the laptop up to see if there's a shim/platter in there or if it looks like there's extra room.

 

Unless you really want to open it up (or need the max. storage which the thicker drives would offer you), it's probably safe to assume 9.5mm is the thickest the notebook will accommodate - this is pretty standard.

 

I did want to open it up to reapply my thermal paste. (I wanted to do all these upgrades at the same time, actually, but...)

It doesn't look like a drive any larger than the one that's already there would fit. So I guess 9.5mm is the largest drive I can fit in there. Are there any 4TB 9.5mm drives? Or am I going to have to go with 2TB? Are there any top contenders I should weigh against each other?