In principle,if you aren’t a high end user, top of the line specs are meaningless to you. The difference between high-end and median, for a low to mid-range user is negligible.
So, for you, what would probably matter most is hard drive size,based on your question.
If probably go with the 1T hard drive.
I’d get the 512G SSD. If you need additional cheap storage down the road, you can get an external USB magnetic drive. Or a NAS box.
How full is the HDD on your current computer?
SSD drive. No moving parts to wear out. Do you really need 1 TB of disk space?
SSD. it’s a LOT faster especially when starting up or opening programs. No moving parts to fail. Get an external drive if you need the extra half gig of storage.
Ssd’s dont have moving parts
They boot much faster
512Gb might get filled up quick.
If you download movies.
I download tv shows and books every day and surf the web. Speed is not an issue when that is what you do so go big and cheap rather than small, fast and expensive.
So SSD for operating system.
Storage depends on how fast of access you need and how much space. If you use a lot of storage, would go with old internal HD. I would still have an SSD for the operating system.
256/512 refers to disk size. For the same price go for the 512. What brand of PC?
To get started the 256hdd/terabyte disc drive is a good pairing. You get a quick starting PC and plenty of data storage for movies and music. The large disc drive is okay for data storage and streaming of files. Your solid state drive stores your active app programs that process your data. The only tricky thing is when you set up say a media program...say windows media player....you have to instruct the program to store new files in the HDD. The same with photo editing apps lest your SSD gets filled up with stored data too quickly. You can add in a larger ssd for a main drive later say a terabyte drive if you want the convenience of one drive with both room for apps and storage. You can use the disc drive for back-ups.
Where are You getting that "information" from ? Are You talking about Memory on the 256GB/512GB ?
get 1TB 5400 rpm 256GB SSD or a 512 SSD
Just to clarify do You mean it comes with:
A 1TB 5400 RPM HDD and a 256GB SSD.
Or
A 1TB 5400 RPM HDD and a 512GB SSD.
Or
A 1TB 5400RPM HDD and 256GB MEMORY ?
A 1TB 5400RPM HDD and 512GB MEMORY ?
Nowadays I would get both HDD or SSD as large as You can afford and get as much Memory as You can afford.
Programs/Programers these days seem to make number one priority and that is make everything as BIG as possible taking up both Storage and Memory so Their stuff uses all the System Recourses possible.
Tech Ping / Support
It depends on what you used it for.
If you only surf the web and read FR and read/write emails then buy the cheapest nice one you see. (in the $300 dollar range)
If you do any significant processing then you want the most memory and highest processor. (>$800)
SSD = solid state drive ( no spinning disk) HDD = spinning hard disk. SSD is faster (no moving parts)
If you care at all about your data (pictures/documents) buy a backup system or service (off-site service)
Unless you have a high end SSD drive, don’t do it. If you are editing video that’s enough activity to chew up an SSD drive. Go for the hybrid, they are more reliable. I am a high end user. I have a full automated backup system on the ghetto box I built from a high end I7. I chewed through 2 SSD drives, they are fast, but feeble. They each crashed within 3 months (Kingston and Samsung.) I went with a Seagate Firecuda Hybrid and no issues, using the backups from the SSD drives restored to the larger drive. Anyway, yeah, they can be good, but you need to get a good quality recent generation SSD.
Hard Drive Disk HHD - rotates and is prone to failure or electronic destruction of your data should one of the needle touches the disk...
SSD - Solid State Drive - like a USB Thumb drive - no moving parts and more secure - but can only be written to a certain number of times.
It does not matter if it is 256 GB, 512 GB, 1 TB , or 2 TB — that is the AMOUNT of storage that it will hold per the data you put in to it — the files, images, etc that you store on your computer/laptop.
Per speed - that is the Processor Intel i5, i7, i9 or AMD Ryzen 3, etc... (or how many of them you need) - most come with at least 4 or 8 or more core processors now that will make calculating and surfing the web faster and render images quicker - coupled with the graphics card (that is usually built in to the mother board).
If you only surf the web and really don’t want to store large volumes of info — get a ASUS or ACER Chromebook that will allow online storage of data and is basically your “hook up” to the Internet.
SSD, hands down. If you need more storage go USB
SSD drives vary in performance.
1.25 TB combined may be unnecessarily large for a utility device.
At the end of the day, you’ll want responsiveness.
I have a kick-ass Surface Pro 3 with 256 GB memory. It’s at least 4 YO, and will run circles around today’s crap-tops.
Apple has a new iPad that’s insane and competitively priced for similar portability.
Find a used Surface Pro 3.
Fast SSDs used to be gamers’ toys. Now, with sizes like rotating HDDs, I’d go with the SSD only (the 512) for simplicity and quietness.
It probably is a good idea to see if your choice has another bay (almost certainly since one choice has two drives). Then, if you need to, you can buy a second SSD or big cheap HDD.
The real question....just how much are you taking up with photos, imagery, songs, and video? Evaluate how much you have now, and how much you might add over the next three years.
Just sayin'...
Whichever way you go be sure to backup. So many people say they don’t have anything important on their computer but are surprised to find out they do when the hard drive dies. Make sure you have a quality surge protector as well.