All of your files including the OS and your applications, songs and games will be stored either on HDD or SSD. There are three types of storage media to keep your precious data safe: Hard Disk Drive (HDD), Solid State Drive (SSD) and Solid State Hybrid Drive (SSHD). Which one is right for you?
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Hard Disks come in two different speeds, 5400 and 7200 RPM with the latter being faster. They also provide monumental storage space ranging from 250 GB to 1.5 TB but due to their mechanical nature, they are very noisy, fragile, heavy and a lot slower than SSDs.
SSDs are a lot more expensive than the traditional HDDs but due to the lack of any mechanical components in them, they are virtually silent, a lot faster than HDD's and lightweight. But the drawback is that SSDs cannot rival the storage space provided by HDD's with the higher capacity drives being ridiculously expensive.
SSHD combines the storage capacity of a traditional HDD and the speed of the newer but more expensive SSDs.
Go for HDDs when you need lots of storage space to store a truckload of files and speed is not a concern. If you are looking for faster bootup speeds and short loading times while okay with the storage limitations that come with it, go for an SSD. Or, if you can find a laptop that has an SSHD then go for it right away as it is win-win situation.
Western Digital has a very good reputation in manufacturing Hard Drives as they last longer than the Seagate counterparts and Data loss is very rare. Avoid buying HDDs online as the chances of the HDD being damaged while shipping are a lot. In SSDs, Samsung and Intel are the major players but Samsung is the leader of the SSD market and the Samsung Magician software that is used to manage the health and performance of the SSDs is very handy. Also, the V-NAND technology used by Samsung where memory is stacked 3-dimensionally is useful as it translates into higher density and higher performance of the drive