All Hard Drive locations in Satisfactory

If you’re tired of wandering the huge Satisfactory map hoping to stumble across a Hard Drive, it’s probably time to check out their exact locations instead.

Satisfactory is full of important resources that you can invest in to expand and improve your factories. From Reinforced Iron Plates for coal production or a Crystal Oscillator for radio comms, everything you find has a purpose, including Hard Drives.

Here’s a rundown of where to find Hard Drives, the best way to unlock Alternate Recipes, and stop the MAM from trolling you and your friends.

All Hard Drive locations

Hard Drives are scattered all over the map in Satisfactory. Thanks to your scanner, it won’t be hard to spot one or two once you’re close enough.

The images above split up the map into four corners so you can place a marker as close to the Hard Drive as possible and reach it.

If you’re wondering what the best Hard Drives you can find are, we’ve got a dedicated tier list you can reference.

Best way to find all Hard Drives

If you want to unlock all Hard Drive recipes without tearing your hair out, here’s the best strategy: slow your roll.

First, unlock everything in Tiers 1 and 2. Before launching that space elevator and unlocking Tiers 3 and 4, grind out as many Hard Drives as possible. The MAM will eventually hand the drive back once you’ve unlocked all available recipes at your tier. Then, go ahead and launch the space elevator.

If you rush ahead, the MAM’s recipe pool gets huge, and suddenly you’re waiting forever for those sweet Turbofuel and Compact Coal recipes. You’ll be stuck twiddling your thumbs while it cycles through recipes you don’t even need yet.

What are they for?

Hard Drives are your ticket to unlocking alternate recipes through the MAM (Molecular Analysis Machine). They come from drop pods scattered across 118 crash sites.

Each drive takes 10 minutes to research, and the MAM will tease you with three randomly selected recipes based on your unlocked tiers. Fair warning: Some recipes will be useless until you unlock the right machines, like those fancy Pure Ore refinery recipes that show up after unlocking coal power.

My recommendation is to be the efficient Satisfactory engineer you are and build a MAM right when you find a Hard Drive. Start the research, tear it down, and 10 minutes later, rebuild it to speed up the process.

If you’re not sure what the best alternate recipe is, check out our Alternate Recipe tier list for Satisfactory.

1.0 Changes

In Satisfactory 1.0, the Hard Drive system finally got some love. Overall, it’s a smarter system, making recipe hunting less of a grind and more of a “Finally, something I can use!” moment.

Gone are the days of being taunted with the same useless recipes, as there are no more duplicates. Now, the MAM’s recipe pool actually respects your progress, so it won’t dangle Tier 6 goodies while you’re stuck in Tier 3.

Plus, research times have been smoothed out a bit, so you’re not watching the clock for eternity.

That’s everything there is to know about Hard Drives and their locations! For more on the game, check out our guides for all SAM Ore locations, how to fix 1.0 crashing on launch, how to make dedicated servers, console commands, and the best factory base layouts.