Which is better, other things being equal: SSD + little RAM, or HDD + a lot of RAM?

Question

Computers

It is clear that it is better to be healthy and rich than poor and sick. But the question is not about that. And about the situation when you need to save a little, maximizing the benefits. If you do not take studios and virtual machines, then even some office workers have to work in a bunch of tabs, not everything comes down to word + excel.

If the answer is not unambiguous, but hybrid, then it is interesting, approximately by what formula (by what logic) the minimum RAM and minimum SSD are selected in addition to the HDD without overly specifying the upcoming tasks (but only taking into account their abstract properties).

Answer 1

If the answer is not unambiguous, but hybrid, then it is interesting, approximately by what formula (by what logic) the minimum RAM and minimum SSD are selected in addition to the HDD without overly specifying the upcoming tasks (but only taking into account their abstract properties).

It's simple: if there is enough memory for tasks and swap is not used above some minimum values, then adding memory can speed up the work, but only indirectly: through caching. Because you don't have control over it, it's not a reliable way to improve performance.
An SSD is guaranteed to increase performance both at work and when running applications and the OS, but is not able to help with a lack of RAM. I fused excess memory to a relative in a laptop, now there is an i7 of the first or second generation, as many as 12 gigs of RAM and an HDD - it feels like an SSD will not be superfluous, especially when you turn on the laptop and browser. And the second relative of the SSD, 4 gigabytes of RAM and an intel atom - a browser (there are no other tasks there) flies.
TL;DR: if the memory is realnot enough - add memory. Otherwise, start with an SSD.

then even some office workers have to work in a bunch of tabs

EMNIP, all modern browsers with standard settings, if possible, unload tabs from memory, even if there is an "extra" one. It’s trite that youtube is afraid to load the entire video into memory, and gives it out in chunks, although with 24 gigabytes of free RAM, such 4K videos can be loaded entirely, at least a dozen. This again brings us back to the issue of storage: the cache is on the disk, and access to it on the HDD can be noticeably slow, especially when fragmented.

Answer 2

IMHO
a bucket of RAM is a priority) with x64 system!
swap is a hat.
ssd - just a matter of 1-2 seconds ... and if there is a lack of RAM, a problem arises

Answer 3

Difficult to answer without knowing the questions.
If you need web surfing, then of course the RAM. If not - ssd, because modern Windows on hdd moves with a creak. If you still have to use hdd, then I would also use a flash drive with a capacity of 4-8 GB, but I would use a high-speed one for readyboost.

Answer 4

Definitely SSD will add speed to the system.
If there is no way to buy memory, then if you switch to x32 OS, then 4 GB will be enough, but I would recommend 8 GB and x64 OS.
When choosing an SSD, pay attention to the exchange rate. Now there is a disk with an M2 interface with speeds up to 3500 MB / s.
My configuration is M2 SSD and 16 GB of memory.