Ten years ago the “SSD or HDD” question came down to budget — an SSD was a luxury. Today the balance is different: for most users the SSD is the standard, while the HDD has specific niches. Here’s how to decide.
The main difference in one sentence
An HDD has a spinning metal platter and a mechanical head that reads it. An SSD has only memory chips, with no moving parts. That’s why an SSD is 10-30x faster, runs silently, and is far more resistant to shocks.
Concrete speeds — what it means in practice
A standard laptop HDD (5400 rpm): 50-100 MB/s read. A standard SATA SSD: 500-550 MB/s. The latest NVMe SSD (M.2 slot): 3,000-7,000 MB/s.
In practice, for the user:
- Booting Windows: HDD 1.5–2 minutes, SSD 10–15 seconds, NVMe 5–8 seconds
- Opening Photoshop: HDD 25–40 seconds, SSD 4–6 seconds
- Opening 30 files at once: the HDD “chokes,” the SSD works normally
Drive types and their speeds
| Type | Read speed | Characteristics |
|---|---|---|
| HDD | 50-100 MB/s | Mechanical, cheapest per GB, good for storage |
| SATA SSD | 500-550 MB/s | No moving parts, quiet, shock-resistant |
| NVMe SSD | 3,000-7,000 MB/s | Fastest, M.2 slot, ideal for demanding work |
Well-known brands with a good price-to-quality ratio: Samsung 980, Crucial MX500, Kingston KC3000. For current prices by capacity, check our price list.
Lifespan — a question we hear often
A standard laptop SSD is rated for 150-300 TBW (Terabytes Written) — that’s 150,000 to 300,000 GB of total writes over its lifetime. For a normal user who doesn’t do video editing, that’s 7–10 years. For a professional who processes video — 3–4 years.
An HDD “fails” differently — the mechanics give out. A typical laptop HDD lasts 4–6 years if the laptop is carried around, 7-10 if it always sits at home.
Recommendations by user type
Student / office work / browser and email
A SATA SSD, 256-512 GB. You don’t need more. If you run out of space, add an external 1 TB HDD. The things you use often go on the SSD; photo/video collections go on the external drive.
Programmer / designer / video editing
An NVMe SSD, 512 GB – 1 TB. Speed directly affects productivity — Photoshop that opens in 4 seconds instead of 40, code that compiles in 1 minute instead of 5. The difference is worth it.
An old laptop you use for basic tasks
A SATA SSD, 256-512 GB. Upgrading an old laptop from an HDD to an SSD often “brings it back to life” — a 15-second boot instead of 2 minutes. The cheapest upgrade with the biggest effect.
Data storage, backups, movie collection
An HDD, 2–4 TB. For data you only store and don’t open daily, an HDD is 50% cheaper per GB. Speed doesn’t matter here.
What NOT to do
- Don’t buy SSDs from unknown brands with no reviews (they often have 50-100 GB of real capacity while advertising 1 TB)
- Don’t buy a used SSD — the controller wears out, and you don’t know how many cycles are behind it
- Don’t “defragment” an SSD — Windows already handles it correctly (TRIM), and manual defragmentation only burns through cycles
- Don’t leave an SSD completely full — keep 10-15% free space for optimal performance
What to do if you want to upgrade
The simplest option — bring the laptop to us. We scan the current hardware, recommend a compatible SSD (not every new SSD fits every laptop), and clone the whole system onto the new drive. Everything’s done in 2-3 hours, and you go home with a laptop that’s 5-10x faster. For upgrade and cloning prices, check the price list.
For questions or advice about a specific model, call 069 1303 111 or drop by one of our locations.
We cover every Belgrade municipality
Our courier picks up and returns devices across the whole city. Click your municipality for the neighbourhoods we cover, the problems we fix most often and arrival times:
VračarSlavija, Vukov spomenik, Tašmajdan...Novi BeogradBlok 19, Blok 30, Blok 45...Stari gradKnez Mihailova, Trg Republike, Studentski trg...Savski venacSenjak, Topčider, Topčidersko brdo...VoždovacBanjica, Konjarnik, Kumodraž...ZvezdaraMirijevo, Bogoslovija, Lipov lad...PalilulaKaraburma, Bogoslovija, Višnjica...ČukaricaBanovo brdo, Žarkovo, Cerak...RakovicaKanarevo brdo, Petlovo brdo, Resnik...ZemunGornji grad, Gardoš, Kalvarija...
Related: we handle SSD drive installation with system migration the same day, and if the old drive is failing — first, data recovery.