Apart from creating memories from the epic photos and videos you took during picnics, road trips, and parties, you probably have important things that you wouldn’t want to lose, regardless of the circumstances. These could be your digital copies of academic records or title deeds for your properties. But how do we safeguard them in the right storage media? Well, before we jump into the factors to consider when buying storage media, let’s take a look at the types of storage media available on the market.
- Hard Disk Drives (HDDs)
- Solid-State Drives (SSDs)
- USB Flash Drives & Memory Cards
- SD & microSD Cards
- Optical Discs (CD/DVD/Blu-ray)
- Cloud Storage
It’s worth considering the below key factors to avoid common mistakes like, crashing, slowness and inadequate space.
Capacity
The storage capacity depends on what you want to store in the media. Most large media files like videos require pretty large spaces, while small files could be something like 1TB. It all comes down to your needs, videos eat up space fast, but documents or music take much less room.
Speed
If you need a super-fast data transfer, you will definitely go with SSD. This storage media is Ideal for video editing or running complex applications in your Pc.
Durability
Most Storage media devices are susceptible to damaged once it falls down. Its worth choosing the brands reputations available in the market like SanDisk, Samsung, WD, Kingston, etc. SSD are mostly preferred especially if you want speed, shock resistance, and you move your device around (like in laptops or portable drives).
Security
When buying a storage media, Security is one of the key factors especially when storing sensitive data like financials, Crypto keys and other credentials. The storage media that you’re about to buy should have features like built-in Encryption, password protections (Fingerprint or pin) and Secure Erase / TRIM Support (for SSDs)
Cost
While cheap is expensive so does your data files. HDDs are generally cheaper and offer more space for the price, making them ideal for bulk storage. While SSDs are more expensive and provide faster speeds and better durability.
Data Backups and Accessibility
Most modern storage media comes with built-in Automatic backup software that allows you to easily create backups of your important data. Once the data is back up it should also allow easy accessibility either through your local storage (like a NAS) or via Cloud if its networked.
