Most people currently purchase laptops for his or her computing needs and have to make the decision between obtaining either a Solid State Drive (SSD) or hard disk Drive (HDD). So which of the 2 is that the better option, an SSD or HDD? There’s no answer to this question; every user has completely different desires and you have got to judge the choice based on those desires, your preferences, and after all budget. even if the value of SSDs has been falling, the value per GB advantage continues to be powerfully with HDDs. Yet, if performance and quick boot up is your primary thought and cash is secondary, then SSD is the best choice. For the rest of this text, we’ll create a comparison of SSD and HDD storage and re-examine the great, the bad, and therefore the ugly of each.
What is an SSD?
We’ll make no assumptions here and keep this text on level that anyone will understand. you would possibly be buying a computer and easily wondering what the heck SSD really means? to start, SSD stands for Solid State Drive. You’re most likely familiar with USB memory sticks – SSD is thought of as an outsized and a lot of sophisticated version of the standard USB, Sort of a memory stick, there are no moving elements in SSD and info is keep in microchips. A hard disk drive uses a mechanical arm with a read / write head to maneuver around and browse info from the correct location on a storage platter. This distinction is what makes SSD so much quicker. As an analogy, what is faster? Going from point A to point by bus or a car, that’s however an HDD compares to an SSD. HDD requires a lot of physical labor (mechanical movement) to get data.
A typical SSD uses what’s referred to as NAND-based flash memory. This is a non-volatile kind of memory. What does non-volatile mean you ask? The straightforward answer is that you simply will close up the disk and it won’t “forget” what was left on it. This is, after all a vital characteristic of any kind of permanent memory. Throughout the first days of SSD, rumors were saying stored data would wear off and be lost after only a couple of years. Regardless, that rumor is in no way true with today’s technology, as you’ll be able to read and write to an SSD all day long and therefore the information storage integrity is going to be maintained for almost two hundred years. In different words, the info storage lifetime of an SSD will outlast you!
An SSD doesn’t have a mechanical arm to read and write information, it instead depends on an embedded processor (or “brain”) known as a controller to perform a bunch of operations associated with reading and writing data. The controller may be an important factor in deciding the speed of the SSD. Selections it makes associated with the way to store, retrieve, cache and pack up information can determine the speed of the drive. We tend to won’t get into the core details for the assorted tasks it performs like error correction, browse and write caching, encryption, and trash collection. An example of a fast controller today is the SandForce SATA 3.0 (6GB/s) SSD controller that supports speeds up to 550MB/s read and write speeds. The next gen SandForce 3700 family of controllers was announced in 2013 and is quoted to reach 1,800MB / s read / write sequential speeds as well as 150K/80K random IOPS.
probably you are wondering what an SSD looks like and how easy it is to replace a hard drive with an after-market device. check the image below, you’ll see both sides and inside of a typically-sized 2.5” SSD. The technology is in metal / plastic case or looks like nothing more than what a battery might:
An SSD doesn’t have a mechanical arm to read and write information, it instead depends on an embedded processor (or “brain”) known as a controller to perform a bunch of operations associated with reading and writing data. The controller may be an important factor in deciding the speed of the SSD. Selections it makes associated with the way to store, retrieve, cache and pack up information can determine the speed of the drive. we tend to won’t get into the core details for the assorted tasks it performs like error correction, browse and write caching, encryption, and trash collection.
What is an HDD?
Hard Disk Drives, or HDD in techno-parlance, have been around for donkey’s years relative to the technology world. HDDs were initial introduced by IBM in 1956 – yes people this is nearly 60-year old technology. (The IBM 350 Disk File, invented by Reynold Johnson, was introduced in 1956 with the IBM 305 RAMAC computer. This drive had fifty 24-inch (0.6 m) platters, with a total capacity of five million 6-bit characters (3.75 megabytes)) An HDD uses magnetism to store information on a rotating platter. A read/write head floats above the spinning platter reading and writing information. The quicker the platter spins, the quicker an HDD can perform. Typical portable computer drives these days spin at either 5400 rpm (Revolutions per Minute) or 7200RPM, tho’ some server-based platters spin at up to 15,000 RPM!
The major advantage of an HDD is that it’s capable of storing data information cheaply. These days, one TB (1,024 gigabytes) of storage isn’t uncommon for a laptop hard drive, and therefore the density continues to grow. However, the price per GB is difficult to calculate now-a-days since there are such a big amount of categories to think about, tho’ it’s safe to mention that every HDDs is well cheaper than SSDs. As a comparison, the favored WD Black (1TB) goes for roughly $69 on most websites whereas the Crucial M500 (960GB) and Samsung 840 EVO (1TB) SSDs opt for $369 and $439, Over 5 times the value of the WD Black. Thus if you would like low cost storage and plenty of it, using a customary hard drive is unquestionably the way to go.
When it involves appearance, HDDs primarily look identical from the outside as SSDs. HDDs use SATA interface. The foremost common size for laptop HDDs is the 2.5” drive and on desktop computers 3.5”. The larger size permits for a lot of platters inside and so more storage capacity. Some desktop hard drives can store up to 6TB of data! Below is an example of what an HDD seems like using the Western Digital 4TB hard drive:
SSD vs HDD Comparison
Now lets do the comparisons and determine which might be best for your needs – SSD or HDD? The best way to compare items is a table with a side by side comparison, green marks indicates an advantage:
| Attribute | SSD (Solid State Drive) | HDD (Hard Disk Drive) |
| Power Draw / Battery Life |  Less power draw, averages 2 – 3 watts, resulting in 30+ minute battery boost |
More power draw, averages 6 – 7 watts and therefore uses more battery |
| Cost | Expensive, roughly $0.10 per gigabyte (based on buying a 1TB drive) | Only around $0.06 per gigabyte, very cheap (buying a 4TB model) |
| Capacity | Typically not larger than 1TB for notebook size drives; 1TB max for desktops | Typically around 500GB and 2TB maximum for notebook size drives; 6TB max for desktops |
| Operating System Boot Time | Around 10-13 seconds average boot up time |
Around 30-40 seconds average boot up time |
| Noise | There are no moving parts and as such no sound |
Audible clicks and spinning can be heard |
| Vibration | No vibration as there are no moving parts |
The spinning of the platters can sometimes result in vibration |
| Heat Produced | Lower power draw and no moving parts so little heat is produced |
HDD doesn’t produce much heat, but it will have a measurable amount more heat than an SSD due to moving parts and higher power draw |
| Failure Rate | Mean time between failure rate of 2.0 million hours |
Mean time between failure rate of 1.5 million hours |
| File Copy / Write Speed | Generally above 200 MB/s and up to 550 MB/s for cutting edge drives |
The range can be anywhere from 50 – 120MB / s |
| Encryption | Full Disk Encryption (FDE)Supported on some models | Full Disk Encryption (FDE) Supported on some models |
| File Opening Speed | Up to 30% faster than HDD |
Slower than SSD |
| Magnetism Affected? | An SSD is safe from any effects of magnetism |
Magnets can erase data |
If we total up the check marks, the SSD gets nine and HDD gets three. Does that mean the that an SSD is 3 times better than HDD? Not at all. As we mentioned earlier, it all depends on individual needs. The comparison here is simply to get out the pros and cons for each choices. to assist you additionally, here are some rules to follow after you decide which drive is best for you:
An HDD might be the right choice if:
- You would like lots of storage capacity, up to 6TB (though with SMR technology new drives can have up to 10TB)
- Don’t wish to pay a lot of money
- Don’t care too much about how fast a computer boots up or opens programs – then get a hard drive (HDD).
An SSD might be the proper choice if:
- You are willing to pay money for quicker performance
- don’t mind restricted storage capacity or can work around that (Again, SSDs are functioning on this “con”)
HDDs are still the popular alternative for the majority of average customers, typically selecting the HDD because the storage option in their new pc merely as a result of the less expensive price. However, more and more customers need prime computing performance and are choosing an SSD. As such, SSDs are well on their way to turning into the mainstream, particularly for laptops given the benefits they present for a mobile device (they are presently the default in the Ultrabook category, new MacBook’s). That said, there will forever be a marketplace for each HDDs and SSDs. the appearance of mSATA SSD devices and hybrid drives that embrace each SSD and HDD options is another choice for customers seeking a bit of the most effective of each worlds.
Svanews 