How to use this tool
This tool helps you avoid the two classic storage mistakes: buying too little and being full in a year, or paying for huge space you'll never fill.
How to think about it
The system (Windows plus your programs) wants a comfortable base — think 256 GB as a real minimum for an SSD, so the drive never runs near full. Everything else you add on top.
- Office / web: a 256–512 GB SSD is usually plenty.
- Gaming: modern games are 50–150 GB each, so 512 GB–1 TB is the comfortable range for a few titles.
- Photo / video editing: 1 TB or more, and fast (NVMe SSD) for working files.
SSD or HDD?
An SSD is dramatically faster and quieter for the system drive — it's the default choice now. A hard drive (HDD) is cheaper per gigabyte and is best as a big, slow backup or archive drive.
The single best speed upgrade for an old PC is still putting the system on an SSD. Capacity matters less than making sure the system drive is an SSD and has room to breathe.