Replacing my hard drive

Hi, there's no one answer as it depends how much storage space you need and your PC usage, and how much you can afford.

The main benefit of a SSD in practice is a much shorter boot time. SSHD drives will not give you that benefit.

Your system drive as a minimum would typically contain
- Your O/S
- Your installed programs
- By default the typical library folders- Documents, Pictures etc.

Cost vs size:
HDD is cheaper than SSD for the same size, but the margins keep changing.
I prefer Toshiba and Hitachi drives- seem very reliable and that seems confirmed by Backblaze tests.
5400rpm should be quite adequate.

As a minimum, aim for 256Gb SSD- but consider up to 1Tb, depending on funds.

Note: Whilst you can install most downloaded programs on (say) 'D:' during the installation procedure, this only applies to part of the program- many key aspects will reside on C:, and potentially large folders in some cases. I.e. space saving on C: may be minimal.

Data security and backup
When planning your usage, aim to keep key documents (in your case university material) off C: - as much personal data as possible from email, settings and favourites/bookmarks to your personal files.

Why? Think what happens when you need to clean install or replace a system disk.

You can do that either by creating a separate partition on your system drive, or using a separate drive.
Some people are happy to relocate the default folders; I would never choose to do that- too easy to make bad mistakes and they fill with folders created when installing other programs.

You need one or more disks for backups.
Plan to use disk imaging - requires a large external storage medium e.g. a 2Tb hard disk (size as appropriate- image files are a compressed copy of the used parts of the disks or partiitons imaged.

Plan for an additional (e.g. freeware) backup regime for fast-changing university work.

You're welcome.
SSHD has only a very small amount of SSD present- perhaps 8-16Gb
What is an SSHD? A Guide to Hybrid Drives

Boot time- think 12-13s to lock screen with a SSD.
Different failure mechanisms of course, as no moving parts.

Relative reliability? tough question..
SSD vs HDD: Which One is More Reliable? - The Revisionist
Are Solid State Drives / SSDs More Reliable Than HDDs?
- technology evolves..

Great summary

I would only disagree with one thing, The relocation of the User folders - First thing I would never move the base User folder with any of the many possible methods that rely on Hacking the system, [this can be achieved with a specialised Installer and is safely world wide in many commercial situations, but is not recommended for individuals.

What I do suggest and have used without any incident myself for many years is using the built in redirection option that is provided in the operating System ... If you check the properties of any of the special User folders you will notice an extra tab - "Customise" this allows the user to redirect the folder to a secondary location, in my case an area of my data drive.

I create my own folder tree on the data drive and use the customise tab to redirect the original folder on C: to the equivalent on D: in my case this is done for all the available personal folders including things such as Desktop, Favorites Etc

I have never lost any files in the many years of use, [obviously I also keep full data backups of everything to be sure ], and reinstalling a system drive has one extra step to repeat the redirect to get back to a running state

I also keep all of my files in folders under the special folders as this covers those applications that "Insist" in defaulting to the special folders, which can cause problems if you just create a new area for data

Which of your listed drives is an SSHD? What do you think is the capacity of the SSD portion of that SSHD?

I guess you have a single Kingston SH103S3120G drives, capacity 120 GB? As near as I can tell, this is a traditional SSD, NOT an SSHD.

You also appear to have a Seagate ST1000DM003-1CH16, which as near as I can tell is an ordinary spinning 1 TB drive, not an SSHD.

I don't see an SSHD in your system, but I may well be confused by your stated specs.

The typical problem with SSHDs is that they have only a small percentage of their stated capacity in SSD form. Most of the storage is on the spinning portion. They were a fairly big deal a few years ago when SSDs were quite expensive, but those days are gone.

If you have 2 totally separate drives---one SSD and one HDD, they would operate independently and the SSD would presumably be of a large enough size that it could contain Windows and ALL of your installed applications. The only thing that would be on the separate HDD would be your personal data---video, mp3s, pictures, etc.

What is the total occupied space on your C partition?

You are using RAID?? The last I heard, RAID is generally not an advantage on an SSD system, but you may have other reasons to use RAID? It just looks to me like you have quite a complicated storage setup that could be consolidated if you have only 1.2 TB of data.

You are misinformed that SSDs are not suitable for data storage. There is only a very small chance that a typical home user will approach the write limitations of an SSD and I don't see any reason to think yet that you are not typical. SSDs can certainly fail at any moment, just as any electric device can.

Including your motherboard. But I have no idea when that might happen.

There is only a low probability that the write limitations (such as they are) on your SSD is related to its possible failure. Do you have any idea how much you have written (in terabytes) to any of your drives?

My point was that your current motherboard is likely limited to standard 2.5 inch SATA SSDs. The most recent generation motherboards are moving away from 2.5 inch drives and toward the much smaller and faster m2 drives. But that is not a major consideration for you because standard 2.5 inch SSDs are still perfectly fine and for all anyone knows, your motherboard will last for years.