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2.5 Hard Drives & External Hard Drives

JW's hard drive (HDD) range varies from 500GB to 14TB. Hard drives offer an excellent price per storage ratio.

We stock brands such as Seagate, Western Digital (WD) & Hitachi.

For those who are storing large quantities of data (i.e. media or backups), a low RPM or green drive may be viable. These operate at 5,400 RPM or less, so they are quiet and use less power, however, do not offer high read/write speeds.

For higher performance and a price, people may wish to obtain 7,200RPM drives which are faster. This would be suitable to write to (i.e. recording gameplay) or using with video editing projects (i.e. reading media files). Some manufacturers refer to these as black drives.

We encourage people to obtain a hard drive from a trusted company with a good warranty.

Why buy a hard drive?

Having access to a sufficient amount of storage is increasingly important. Hard drives and storage allow you to store all of your digital content conveniently and securely. Taking the time to invest in a quality hard drive will help you avoid potential pitfalls if your system collapses. Hard drives are also useful for saving large visual and audio project files. Choosing the right hard drive can also significantly improve the performance of your gaming experience. 

Hard drives can be either external or internal. Some are specifically designed to work alongside your desktop computer, and others are more compact and portable.

What types of hard drives are there?

There are two main types of hard drives: hard disk drives (HDD) like SATA, and SSD (Solid State Drives) like NVMe. HDD drives like SATA allow data to be written on a disk and come in a large storage range. A SATA is great if you’re looking for an affordable storage option with high capacity. 

SSD (Solid State Drives) like NVMe’s don’t have any moving components and are more durable, compact, and portable. SSD and NVMe hard drives are faster than HDD hard drives on average.  

At JW, we stock a wide selection of world-leading hard drive makers, including Hewlett Packard, Western Digital,  Seagate, LaCie, and Dell.

What hard drive should I get?

Before purchasing hard drives and storage, you should first consider your storage capacity, portability, and speed needs, as well as overall compatibility with your computer operating system. A hard drive that operates at high transfer speeds will logically be much easier to use.

If you’re planning on taking your hard drive with you on the go, you should purchase an external hard drive that is both compact and easy to transport. Whereas if you have a desktop computer and seek a significant amount of fixed storage space, then a larger hard drive would be the best choice for your personal storage needs.