A question that gets asked often is, “How much non-profit computer storage do you actually need and which type?”The quick answer, of course, is it depends. However, there are a few things to know that could avoid headaches later. Let us face it. Shopping for a computer is very confusing even when you are not shopping for a gaming experience. It feels like you do not need all that power but you are not sure how to break it all down and stay away from things you can avoid. You are also not sure of the essential pieces that you will need. What is worse is that you are, probably, the most technologically inclined of your group in most cases. You, if you are a new company, do not have enough money to hire someone who knows better. Therefore, you can feel like that you are flying blind without guide ropes to assist you from making bad decisions.
The first area to think about is storage. Obviously, more is better and that makes sense. It is when they start talking bout HDD, SSD, and NVMe. If a person starts talking to you about them then you might get a glazed look in your eye. You could, also, possibly, just nod your head and hope that they stop talking because you do not understand it. But, here is the long and short of the story. NVMe is usually the fastest hard drive you can get but you have to make sure that your motherboard actually accepts it. If you have older computers or if you have the wrong motherboard then you cannot use this style. SSD is the next fastest. HDD is the style you are probably used to but is very slow. However, that does not mean it does not have its place. It tends to be cheaper and you can get versions which much larger storage spaces for less.
The question becomes, at this point, how fast do you need it to be. Is it actually noticeable between the types of hard drives? The answer is it depends if which two you are comparing. If you are currently using an HDD drive then moving to NVMe or SSD is going to be remarkably faster. If you are talking SSD vs NVMe then you may not notice a difference, especially as a layperson.
In most cases, if you are a general office then SSD is probably the way to go. It is fast and if your computer or laptop can handle an HDD drive then it will, likely, fit an SSD drive. It depends on how old your computer is as there is an older connection point that will not fit an SSD drive. Those, are pretty rare nowadays and if you have a recent computer within the last 5-7 years then you can probably use an SSD drive.
Why does this matter at all? Productivity is the key answer. It also means that your customers have to wait for less than they call into your office. We have all been on the phone where we are told to wait because a computer has not brought up the information yet. If the information exists on that computer then the SSD is going to bring it up faster than on an HDD drive. It spares the worker and the customer valuable time they coil duse doing something else. Speed is always a factor in business and getting the answer for a customer as fast as possible only helps you build goodwill in your marketplace. A good thing for a non-profit because it helps you build up a base that will be more likely to donate to your organization later.
Therefore, most organizations, if they are not gaming or doing intensive graphics, should get an SSD based system. SSD is extremely fast when compared to HDD drives. However, you may want to keep your HDD drives like external hard drives. The larger space makes this a good idea. Just keep in mind that the processing or retrieving of the information from these hard drives will be much slower.