Is a 128GB SSD and 500GB HDD enough for a basic student laptop?

A

alkemyst

Limp Gawd
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Feb 20, 2005
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I am worried more about the 128SSD. Their old laptops were only 256GB and 500GB previously. My plan is to load the user files onto the HDD and only use the SSD for OS/Programs.

I could get decent 256GB SSDs for $50-60 (NVMe) but then that is another cost.

I picked up the $299 HP 14-DF0023CL deal (i3-8130U, 4GB, 1080p IPS, 128GB SSD) and added a 500GB WD Blue HDD, 4GB of ram (total 8GB), Intel 9260 Wireless NIC (Realtek is crap) and hoping these are nice laptops for the 13 and 16 year old. They don't really game and really just listen to music and do homework along with the typical facebook/socal media stuff.

I haven't had less than 1TB for an OS drive in some time (with 2TB+ secondary SSD storage even on my own laptop).

Thanks for advice.
 
it doesn't take a monster system to run word, excel, play music or watch youtube videos. Thats a perfect laptop for kid. Kids will hate it because it can't really play fortnite.. But its fine for school and social media use. If it gets smashed or stolen? It'll hurt your pocket, but its not a crushing loss.
 
A 128GB SSD should be plenty unless they are downloading files and/or installing games. I've setup older laptops with hard drives as small as 40-60GB as basic office/internet systems before and it's never been an issue.

On an Intel desktop system with a small SSD and larger mechanical HDD, I would use a chunk of the SSD to setup SSD caching on the mechanical hard drive via SRT. I'm not sure if you can do it on that laptop though.
 
Sell the 128ssd and buy a 500gb nvme. Thank me later.

I doubt a laptop will run raid for srt.


I just installed a 1tb inland nvme in my laptop and windows is faster than my 860 evo sata ssd on my desktop making me want to upgrade my desktop. Worthy upgrade imo.
 
Windows will fit comfortably on a 120G SSD. You have enough room to install some stuff, including Office, but it gets tight. Having the HDD helps, so long as the owner knows how to split their files across drives (Windows will want to default to everything in Documents on the C:\, which you can move but requires intervention, or OneDrive...)

I still have quite a few systems running on 120G SSDs without too much issue.

That said, a single 500 would probably be better off for everyone, even if it is overall less space.
 
bit the bullet and picked up two 256GB ADATA XPG SX8200 Pros for $49.99 each. Those machines should scream. :)
 
128GB is huge for 90% of school things. There might be some multi-media and/or graphics classes that might require more. Usually, if a student demands a large amount of disk space, it's for non-school related activity (gaming, being one of the most popular... I think you know of some others).
 
The laptops only came with 128gb

For the other post, they aren’t downloading porn but they have tons of music and videos especially self-recorded. They will use flash cards/thumb drives for the excess.

I can sell the two 128gbs for a few bucks.
 
music and videos shouldn't be filling up a school device. tell them to suck it up. 128 total is plenty for a school machine.
 
one 500gb ssd will take care of a basic laptop storage need with plenty of room left over
 
The bare minimum I'll use for family and friends systems is 256GB so they won't need to micromanage data as much and it cuts down on support. Outlook OSTs can be upwards of 50-100GB and that'll cut into 120/128GB drives hard, and that's before adding in Dropbox or Google Drive syncing. The small price to go up to 500GB/512GB usually makes 256GB not worth it, unless it's for a laptop with a mSATA drive or something where the cost bump is higher.

For a laptop I'd say go to 500GB/1TB and skip the HDD entirely since all it would do it cut into battery life and significantly increase the risk of drive failure.
 
the 256GB to 1TB was a $100 jump, to 512GB only $20 but this was already a little over budget esp since all costs are double due to two laptops. I will be leaving dropbox on the 500GB HDD (they have very little) and they just use webmail.

Later I will upgrade to possibly 1TB/2TB like my preferred build
 
I wouldn't want a spinner in anything a kid moves around regularly. a 2.5 WD Blue HDD runs ~$35 and you can pick up an entry lvl adata or silicon power 500gb sata ssd for ~$55.

The added durability when being bounced around in a backpack is well worth the small price premium. (or even just use the 500 sata SSD and sell the nvme to make up the price difference.)
 
I got two LPVX 500gb Blues for $50 shipped. I have not had a problem with the single platter blues and have used them in laptops for a long time now. I would love SSDs across the board. My own laptop is using a 2TB HDD for data and I heavily travel without issue. It's a Samsung Spinpoint.

The budget was a pretty strict $250 and I added to their limit or the rest of the items that will improve reliability.
 
I guess for me my time is more valuable than the extra bit on SSD cost. After having to do data recovery on failing HDDs for years I don't want to have to deal with that at this point, especially on a laptop where it's more likely to be an issue. I'll still use HDDs in stationary desktops for storage drives but for everything else I'll use a solid state disk.
 
I get ya...I am at a limit updating this family to 2019 :) Just picked up 3 new iphone 11 128GBs for them as well. Just came off of almost 9 months not working so I am doing ok with what I have been given.

I'd have loved to get them i5 machines with 1TB 970 Pros or higher and 2TB SSD data drives. That said, their own machines were early dual cores with 256GB on one and 500GB on the other.
 
lol "money is tight but I dropped $3k on new iphones". are you trolling? how about treating your kids like kids and give them a hand me down phone and smaller ssds so they actually use the laptops for school work.
 
They aren’t my kids. Not trolling though. The laptops are for school but there is no rule they can’t have fun with them.
 
alkemyst said:
They aren’t my kids. Not trolling though. The laptops are for school but there is no rule they can’t have fun with them.
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and when they "have fun" and get a bunch of malware and get banned from the school networks or they drop it and the spinner crashes you might get the points people are making.
also, im a school tech, ive seen both situations.
 
I have no clue the story being spun. There is a difference between what I budgeted and money being tight.

I am a network engineer by trade and have been dabbling in computers and the internet since the early 80s.

HDDs that were far inferior did fine for decades in laptops.

Almost all modern drives will park the heads in a fall today.
 
the "im at a limit" and " 9 months not working" is why I assumed money might be tight.
and?
yes and people were careful with them or they lost data and replaced drives.
nope. the blues you bought dont.
 
I'd skip the 500GB HDD entirely. I went through college and most of graduate school with a 128GB SSD and never came even close to full capacity.
 
alkemyst said:
The laptops only came with 128gb

For the other post, they aren’t downloading porn but they have tons of music and videos especially self-recorded. They will use flash cards/thumb drives for the excess.

I can sell the two 128gbs for a few bucks.
Click to expand...

My beef with flash cards is they tend to just quit working after enough hard cycle use. Sell those 128gbs, save some pennies, and get an external 4tb usb drive. Don't loose your kids moments in time because of a 12$ chumpy flash card. I noticed you are using i3 and it should be fine. I'm using super low budget discount dell clearance i5s from last year for my live streaming video project. I am able to run 3 1080P cameras at 30fps(logitech 920s), and a presonous 2.6 for my audio inputs and I do just fine. You can see an example of it over here: https://www.empirednb.com/shows/empirednb-mixes/20191005-2038 The i3 may not have the power to do what I do, but you can EASILY record 1 1080P camera maybe even 2 and 1 external audio card with zero issues. The pain point might be in editing that footage on the laptop. The render output times maybe be high. However, big shouts, and big ups for supporting your kids creative endeavors. Those are still great setups that can do a lot, don't break the bank, and if they get smashed? May hurt the wallet, but not a crushing financial loss.
 
I been using a 128Gb SSD for Windows and a 1Tb Seagate back up plus USB drive for storage to hold my Stream Games and ReLive recordings .. I switch the drive to what ever PC that I am on at the moment and it works for me and I have my eye on a 4Tb Back Up's for $89 as the way to go as USB 3.0 is about 5Gb transfer speed and 1Tb SSD's just cost to much and power comes over USB but you may want to check you power output limits with a laptop as for size of drive and it's needs .

My 1Tb was $49 and I like it a lot as it stores ReLive at 60fps recordings and play back looks like this

 
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