4 PC storage and Wi-Fi mistakes I’m tired of seeing after 10 years of reviewing tech

Published Aug 13, 2026, 10:00 AM EDT Dibakar Ghosh is a tech journalist at How-To Geek, where he focuses on Linux, Windows, and productivity tools. His goal is simple—help readers at every skill level get more done with the tech they use every day. He began his writing career in 2016 with WordPress tutorials, later moving into digital marketing, where he spent years reviewing complex tools for marketers. His work has also appeared on Authority Hacker, where he’s shared in-depth guides on digital workflows and online productivity. That experience now shapes his journalism, blending analytical depth with practical, real-world advice. When he’s not writing or testing software, Dibakar is usually watching movies or playing video games. He’s a huge Christopher Nolan fan and a strong proponent of the theater experience. In gaming, he has sunk hundreds of hours into Insomniac’s Spider-Man series, Returnal, Prototype, Darksiders, and Final Fantasy titles. I've been reviewing and writing about tech for the past decade, and during that time, other tech journalists and I have written plenty of articles busting myths and laying out best practices around PC storage, Wi-Fi, and networking. And while you do see consumer habits improve overall, there are some habits that just refuse to die. Here are four I keep seeing over and over. Building an all-SSD PC Not every file on your PC needs premium storage SSDs are faster than hard drives, and with no mechanical parts to fail, they feel more durable and predictable. Because of that, a lot of people now default to SSDs for everything and build all-SSD PCs. However, I find that completely unnecessary and a potential waste of money. For one, HDDs are a lot more affordable than SSDs—especially considering the current sky-high storage prices. Second, they’re fast enough for basic use cases, especially for media storage. There’s also the fact that SSDs aren’t immune to sudden failure, so choosing them primarily for reliability isn't the wisest move. This might be anecdotal, but I have a 500GB hard drive from 2011 that still works fine, while one of my SSDs hit 70% health at around five years old and needs replacing. If protecting your data actually matters to you, the answer isn't "buy SSDs"—it's following the 3-2-1 backup rule where you keep three copies, on two types of media, with one offsite. For context, my current workstation is running a 500GB NVMe SSD for my OS and core apps, a cheaper 1TB SATA SSD for storing my virtual machines, docker apps, and project files I’m working on, and a 4TB HDD for bulk storage. I keep my photos, movies, documents, and even archive many of my games on the HDD. This saves me the trouble of downloading games when I want to play them—I can simply copy them from the HDD to the SATA SSD and start gaming. If I'd built this same 5.5TB setup with SSDs alone, it would've cost me a small fortune. Sticking to your default DNS server Your ISP would really like you to never read this section Credit: Nick Lewis / How-To Geek A DNS (Domain Name System) server translates human-readable website names into IP addresses that computers can connect to. For example, when you enter google.com in your browser, a DNS server finds its IP address (such as 142.250.x.x), which your computer then uses to connect to the website. Now, by default, your internet service provider assigns you its own DNS server. It’s convenient, but it comes with a few downsides. Firstly, an ISP's DNS server can get overloaded, which can translate to slower query resolution, resulting in longer load times. Then there’s the fact that your ISP can see the domains you look up through its DNS server. Beyond the privacy concern itself, that data can be logged, retained, and potentially used to send you targeted ads. This is why it’s highly recommended that you change your DNS server. One of the most popular options is Cloudflare’s 1.1.1.1, which is blazing fast and claims not to sell or share users' personal data with third parties. However, your DNS queries are still going through a third-party server, and they could see that data if they wanted to. As such, if you want a truly private DNS resolver, the best solution is to build one using Pi-hole and Unbound. That way, your DNS queries are resolved on your own hardware, which is about as private as it gets with your DNS data. Storing your external storage devices in a drawer That backup drive in your drawer isn't as safe as you think A lot of people offload their family photos, trip videos, old software, or game installers onto an external HDD or SSD, then stick that drive in a drawer or on a shelf for safekeeping. Unfortunately, neither hard drives nor SSDs are ideal for long-term archival storage without periodic checks, and leaving a drive untouched for years can eventually put your data at risk. You see, SSDs store data as electrical charge. Without power, those charges slowly leak away, changing the precise configuration of 1s and 0s that make up your files. Now, while the drive is connected to a computer, built-in error correction mechanisms catch and fix these small errors as they appear. However, if the drive is unplugged, those errors can and will accumulate silently until, one day, you plug it in and find corrupted files where your photos used to be. Going by JEDEC specifications, consumer SSDs are generally expected to retain data for at least a year when powered off under ideal conditions. In comparison, HDDs are more resilient to bit rot but not immune. It might last more than a year, but it’s still good practice to power them on at least once a year. Ideally, if you have a lot of data backed up across a collection of HDDs and SSDs, I'd strongly recommend moving at least some of it to a NAS. This way, your data stays readily accessible, and you can use the NAS to monitor the health of your storage devices and maintain redundant copies. I should also mention that building a NAS doesn't need to be expensive—you probably already own an old laptop or Raspberry Pi that you can repurpose into a NAS. Pointing your router antennas at your devices You’re probably making it worse by doing this Plenty of Wi-Fi routers come with adjustable antennas, and plenty of people believe that pointing them toward a room with a weak signal will magically fix it. Now, it is true that the orientation of the antennas affects the Wi-Fi signal, but it’s not like a flashlight shooting a Wi-Fi beam in whatever direction you point it. You see, the Wi-Fi signal actually radiates from the sides of the antenna in an ever-expanding donut shape. So if you want maximum horizontal spread—covering rooms on the same floor—your antennas should generally point straight up. Alternatively, if you want better coverage on the floor above or below in a multi-story home, orienting one or two antennas horizontally can help. What antennas can't do is aim Wi-Fi at one specific corner of your house. If a spot isn't getting a signal, physically moving the router closer to that area will be much more useful than fiddling with the antennas. However, if multiple areas of your home have dead zones, you’re better off stopping your fight with the antennas and investing in a mesh network. Why these habits persisted for so long I feel that people are falling into these same habits over and over again, not because they're hard to avoid, but because they don't actually cause any problems in your day-to-day life. These are more like optimization problems. Making these changes will definitely improve your setup, but not making them doesn't break anything—making them easier to ignore or sleep on.