Storage is where a laptop keeps everything when it’s switched off: the operating system, your programs, your photos, that folder called “New folder (3)”. It’s also the part that most affects how fast a laptop feels in ordinary use. Opening the lid, launching an app and saving a file all wait on the drive.
Three kinds of storage show up in laptop listings. One is what you want, one is a warning sign, and one is a relic that still has a job.
Think of a library
Imagine three libraries holding the same books.
In the first, a librarian walks the aisles to fetch each book. If the books you want are scattered across the building, you wait while they walk. That’s a hard drive.
In the second, every book is within arm’s reach of a librarian who never needs to move. You ask, and it’s in your hand. That’s an SSD.
The third works like the second, but there’s only one librarian, the building is tiny, and it’s bolted shut so it can never be extended. That’s eMMC.
HDD: the spinning disk
A hard disk drive stores data on metal platters that spin thousands of times a minute, read by a tiny arm that swings across them. It’s a remarkable piece of engineering, and it’s slow by modern standards, because every request waits for something to physically move.
A laptop that boots from a hard drive takes a minute or more to start and stutters whenever several things happen at once. The moving parts are also fragile. A drop while the disk is spinning can destroy it.
Where it still makes sense: cheap bulk storage. Hard drives cost far less per gigabyte, so they’re a good choice for an external backup drive or for a desktop that needs room for a huge media collection.
In a new laptop: avoid one as the main drive. They’re rare now, but they still turn up in old stock and used machines.
SSD: the one to buy
A solid-state drive has no moving parts. It stores data in memory chips and can fetch any piece of it almost instantly. A laptop with an SSD starts in seconds, opens programs quickly, runs silently and shrugs off bumps.
You’ll see two labels.
- SATA SSD: the older kind. Several times faster than a hard drive.
- NVMe SSD: the current standard, often written “PCIe NVMe” or “M.2 NVMe”. Several times faster again than SATA.
For everyday use, the gap between a hard drive and any SSD is enormous, and the gap between SATA and NVMe is hard to notice. You’ll feel NVMe when copying big files, loading games or editing video. So don’t pay a premium for the very fastest drive unless that’s your work.
One upgrade tip: in many laptops the SSD is a small card that can be swapped for a bigger one later. That makes storage one of the few things you can sometimes fix after buying.
eMMC: storage on a budget
eMMC is flash storage, like an SSD, but it’s closer to the memory card in a camera. It’s much slower than a real SSD, it comes in small sizes like 64GB or 128GB, and it’s soldered to the board so it can’t be replaced or upgraded.
On a Chromebook, eMMC is acceptable. ChromeOS is small, and most of your files live online.
On a Windows laptop, it’s a problem. Windows and its updates take up a large share of a 64GB drive on their own. Owners of these laptops often find, a year in, that there’s no room left to install updates. A Windows laptop with eMMC storage is nearly always the cheapest one in the store, and that’s the reason.
You may also see UFS on some thin, inexpensive devices. It’s faster than eMMC, and it’s usually soldered too. Treat it as a step up, but not as a real SSD.
Side by side
| HDD | SSD | eMMC | |
|---|---|---|---|
| Speed | Slow | Fast to very fast | Slow to middling |
| Typical sizes | 500GB to several TB | 256GB to 2TB | 32GB to 128GB |
| Moving parts | Yes | No | No |
| Upgradeable | Usually | Often | No |
| Best use | Backups, bulk storage | Any laptop’s main drive | Basic Chromebooks |
How much do you need?
- 256GB: enough for documents, browsing and streaming. It fills up if you keep lots of photos or install games.
- 512GB: the comfortable choice for most people.
- 1TB: for gamers, since big games can take 100GB or more each, and for anyone who edits video or keeps a large photo library.
- 2TB and up: professional video work, or people who never delete anything.
Storage advertised and storage available aren’t the same. The system and built-in apps take a share, and drives are measured in a way that makes a “512GB” drive show up as about 476GB.
If you’re torn between sizes, remember that a portable external SSD is inexpensive and easy to add later. Memory is harder to add. When a budget forces a choice, more RAM with a smaller SSD usually ages better than the reverse.
What to look for in a listing
- Good: “512GB PCIe NVMe SSD”, “1TB M.2 SSD”.
- Fine: “256GB SSD”, if your needs are light.
- Caution: “128GB UFS”, or “128GB SSD” on a Windows laptop.
- Avoid: “64GB eMMC” on Windows, or “1TB HDD” as the only drive.
Watch for listings that add cloud storage to make the number look bigger, such as “64GB eMMC + 1TB cloud”. The cloud part is usually a subscription trial.
For more on choosing sizes and what we recommend, see our Storage page. To see how storage fits with everything else in a listing, try How to Read a Laptop Spec Sheet.
More reading: all Dealmania articles