It's no secret that there is an obvious difference between SSD and HDD. You can read more about SSD and what it is in our article “What is an SSD and how it works”. In this part, we will discuss the main differences between the two types of drives that currently exist and 7 reasons why you should upgrade to an SSD.
SSDs can offer very high processing speeds. In particular, thanks to the SSD, the operating system will be able to start with, as it seemed before, incredible lightning speed. Any SSD drive can run your OS twice as fast as a similar hard drive.Fast Reading and Writing: An SSD is capable of handling about 500 megabytes per second, compared to an average SSD with 150 megabytes on a hard drive. SSDs can be useful for you if you are, say, a graphic designer using software that requires a huge amount of PC resources, or a hardcore gamer who needs high performance for games.
Low Power Consumption: these storage devices are designed in such a way that they consume significantly less energy for their operation than possible analogues among HDDs. This way, your laptop battery will last longer and save you a lot of money on your electricity bills in the long run.
Low Noise: spinning hard drives are known to make enough noise to annoy the user if they need to focus on something important. SSDs can make life a lot easier if you want the device to make as little noise as possible during operation.
Shape and size: SSD, due to its compact size, can be installed both in place of the old HDD, and make it an external drive.
Disadvantages of SSD over HDD
High cost: SSD prices have been falling for years, but their HDD predecessors remain a much more affordable and affordable option. One of the reasons for the biting prices may be that the popularity of the former is currently much lower than that of classic SSDs. Perhaps in a few years everything will change in favor of SSD.
Loss of data due to power failure: Although SSDs are a more reliable storage of information, a sudden power outage can affect the stored data. If the power is suddenly interrupted, you risk losing all data.
Limited Lifetime: The biggest disadvantage of an SSD is that it loses its write capacity over time. This is because it is not possible to change the number of bits on a disk. In order to fix this, it is necessary to delete and rewrite a large block of data, because when information is erased in an SSD cell, a residual charge is stored in it. This charge increases the resistance of the cell and eventually the current may stop flowing through it and it becomes useless.
In the previous article, we already discussed the method of creating conditions for stable wear of disk resources, however, as much as we would not like, this only leads to slower degradation of the SSD, but not to its “immortality”. It is important to note that the indicated negative moment in the operation of the disk does not affect its ability to read information in any way, since the charge value does not change during this process.
Fortunately, manufacturers have ways to deal with these issues. In particular, - hybrid disk (SSHD), which is based on a method such as SSD Cahing, which should not be confused with the cache memory inside the SSD. With this method, frequently used data and applications are copied to the SSD, which acts as a cache, while the HDD acts as the main storage device. Thus, you have a lightning-fast disk with important and frequently used data, and an HDD for storing music and movies, which can be downloaded and deleted without consequences.
Summing up the results of the first half of the article, SSDs have an incomparable advantage over HDDs in terms of information write speed, but the previous generation of drives is still a financially more profitable option. The growing popularity of SSDs does not mean that HDDs will leave the market soon. To this day, new technologies are being created, such as HAMR (Thermal Assisted Magnetic Recording), the development of more advanced hard drives that will help them remain a profitable choice today. Hard drives have done an incredible job and are an important branch in the evolution of information storage. Given the pace of development of computer technology, it is likely that soon a formidable candidate for HDD - SSD will take the place of its ancestor. Not so long ago, Samsung launched the “PM1633a 15TB SSD 15TB” module, which can be considered one of the first steps towards a bright future for solid state drives.
We've discussed the difference between the two competing types of drives, but still haven't touched on the important topic of why you should buy an SSD. Time does not stand still, everything develops and new solid-state drives threaten to soon capture the computer technology market in the field of information storage.
Let's get straight to the reasons why SSDs look so much better than their predecessors.
Reasons to discover SSD
- SSDs are colder. Why is that? They don't have moving parts like HDDs, so SSDs can't physically generate the same amount of heat. This is especially important if you work with many programs at the same time or if you live in a country with a high ambient temperature. Consequently, your PC is much less prone to overheating.
- As we discussed above, SSDs are much quieter than HDDs and have a significant speed advantage.
- Solid state drives are stronger. You can safely throw it on the floor, being sure that nothing will be damaged, while the HDD may be damaged.
- SSDs are not affected in any way by magnets. Since HDDs store information thanks to magnets, a strong magnetic field near them can damage data. By purchasing an SSD, you can be calm if the drive suddenly finds itself in a magnetized area.
Summing up, we can safely say that although SSDs are not without their shortcomings, their advantage is undeniable. It is quite possible that in the very near future they will become a new data storage standard, but for now, the best option will be hybrid - in which you connect both SSD and HDD to the PC, which complement each other perfectly.
A lot of people ask the question - "why do you need an ssd?". Some 5-6 years ago, there was simply no alternative to a conventional hard drive (HDD). He coped with all possible tasks: storing huge volumes of video files is easy, recording hundreds of gigabytes of music is not a problem, remembering the contents of thousands of small files was also not something supernatural for him.
So it was until a certain point, or rather until 2009, until the technology for creating SSD drives appeared. And then what was the point of creating some kind of “other” technology, instead of a long-proven one, you ask? I’ll make a reservation right away, if you think that there is no difference between them, or it is insignificant, you are mistaken.
As it turned out, the hard disk has a number of shortcomings that cannot be solved by simply improving the technology for creating HDDs. This suggested a fundamentally different approach to creating a device capable of storing huge amounts of information, and most importantly, quickly writing them down and just as quickly making it possible to read information from itself.
The impossibility of further improvement of HDD creation technology is primarily determined by it. Namely, those very “pancakes” that, rotating at great speed, create a noticeable vibration (for a test, try to take a working “screw” in your hands). In addition, the reading head is so close to these disks that the slightest blow to the case can lead to bad sectors.
For the same reason, it is better not to work the HDD in any position other than horizontal. Of course, it cannot be said that hard drives are not improving at all now: manufacturers are constantly “playing” with different numbers of “pancakes” inside, hard drives themselves are becoming more and more high-speed (high-speed), read and write speeds have also increased compared to old models.
And their capacity has long crossed the "psychological" mark of 1 TB (1000 GB). But, there is nowhere else to go. Even modern HDDs still do not like low temperatures (their “comfort zone” is between +18 and +45 degrees), they are afraid of shocks, heat up during operation, create noise and take up a lot of space in the system unit. And this is the main difference between an SSD drive - it has no moving parts at all.
That is, absolutely no mechanics, but according to the principle of operation, it is very similar to a flash drive, only many times better (more reliable). In this sense, it is quite rightly called - "solid-state drive". It has many more advantages than disadvantages. For example, low power consumption, since there are no motors and electromagnets in the design of the device.
SSDs are not afraid of harsh treatment (accidental drops, for example, to the floor from a height), they are more resistant to sudden changes in temperature - that is, they can work stably even in cold weather (up to -10). An SSD makes no noise, at all. It can be recommended to various recording studios or simply to people who, during their work, it is important that there are no extraneous noises and vibrations.
With HDD, of course, everything is not so “rosy”. Let's say that the work of one hard drive is difficult to catch with the "naked" ear, but imagine what will happen if you install 10 hard drives in one computer! And each of them will from time to time make some kind of extraneous sound - for example, clicks, which is inevitable for hard drives (at the beginning of a read operation, or when exiting sleep mode, etc.).
The small size of the SSD is another significant plus (it can be put instead of a drive, for example), since such devices are often installed in laptops, and even netbooks, where the thickness of the case is only a couple of centimeters. And even in a regular PC, after installing an SSD, there will be more space for wiring inside the system unit, and, theoretically, ventilation should improve.
Oh yes, I forgot to say, SSDs practically do not heat up during operation, and if they do heat up, then this does not affect their work in any way, so you can forget about additional cooling. And the fattest plus of SSD is the best speed of reading/writing information. It is many times higher here than even on the fastest HDD. An ordinary hard drive can handle large files, such as HD movies, quite easily.
Even if it is almost completely filled with such files, it will not be difficult for him to open any of them in a second. But, try to upload several hundred small files (pictures, text documents) and you will be unpleasantly surprised. After some time, the hard drive will become "pensive", it will freeze, and the write speed will drop. The problem lies in such a phenomenon as "fragmentation".
The fact is that the hard drive writes to magnetic disks sequentially in each cell, and the cells, in turn, are combined into sectors. Let's say you recorded 200 photos on it, then edited them, and even deleted some of them altogether. At the same time, suppose that the hard drive was already almost filled to capacity with something else.
It turns out that in place of the deleted photo, there will be a kind of “empty” place (cliff). Over time, when you want to upload a couple of hundred more photos to this disk, instead of forming a single chain, information will begin to be written a little bit into these “empty places”.
As a result, when you try to find your photo, the read head of the hard drive will start randomly rushing around the entire area of \u200b\u200bthe “pancake”, from sector to sector, collecting your file (photo) piece by piece, because there is no clear sequence, the file seems to be scattered all over the hard drive.
To eliminate this phenomenon, even at the stage of developing the OS (operating system) Windows, in particular, a utility was developed that is designed to carry out the defragmentation process. That is, the connection of various particles of one file together. It is recommended to periodically perform a defragmentation operation on all hard drives. regardless of their volume - to speed up the computer (unless, of course, you have the OS on this hard drive).
So, on the SSD there is no need to defragment. It is in the case of an SSD that you don’t have to do anything instead of a defragmentation procedure, literally. Even smart Windows 7 disables this feature (only for this volume) as soon as it sees that an SSD drive has been installed in the computer. In the SSD, in addition to NAND memory modules, a controller is installed that allows you to write any data to any sector of memory, after which it instantly displays information.
These were all advantages, but, oddly enough, SSDs also have disadvantages. Any SSD drive has a limited number of write (rewrite) cycles of memory blocks.
If you copy, then delete, then copy gigabytes of information to your SSD every day, you will be able to state its death pretty quickly. However, as mentioned above, SSDs are equipped with a controller that also takes care of evenly distributing information across all memory blocks, instead of concentrating on one block (which will lead to its breakdown).
Thus, with the use of all technologies, it was possible to increase the number of write / rewrite cycles to an average of 10,000 times, which is ≈8–13 years of work, which, frankly, is a very worthy result, and there is no point in demanding more. Let's even take 5 years, after which time the average SSD drive bought today will most likely already be a museum exhibit, or something like that.
However, long-term operation is guaranteed, provided that there is no daily rewriting of tens of gigabytes of information - an HDD is better suited for these purposes. The second disadvantage of the SSD is its low maximum capacity (2TB models have already appeared) and the high cost per gigabyte compared to the HDD. How to find out how much one gigabyte of memory costs?
Yes, just divide the cost of the device by its capacity = the price of one gigabyte. This is all approximately, of course, however, even according to such calculations, the difference in the cost of one gigabyte of memory can be 10 or more times! Most people take an SSD to install the OS on it, and for this, an SSD with a capacity of 60 GB or more will do.
As you can see, the difference in the design of these two types of devices is enormous. I think, after reading this article carefully, everyone will decide for himself what is better - HDD or SSD.
- 1. HDD and SSD: main differences
- 2. Cost
- 3. Capacity
- 4. Speed
- 5. Fragmentation and defragmentation of disks
- 6. Reliability and service life
- 7. Shape and noise level
- 8. Results
In 2009, a new type of Solid State Drive (along with the HDD) appeared on the computer equipment market. This novelty actualized the problem of choice: SDD and HDD hard disk: what is the difference? What is best for the user? What nuances should be considered when choosing, and what can be overlooked? More details in our review.
HDD and SSD: the main differences
The main purpose of the solid-state SSD and magnetic HDD is to securely store the personal data of users. However, they perform their function differently. There are several differences - first of all, this is the principle of operation.
In the HDD variant, information is written and read thanks to a special head moving over the surface of the disk, which is rapidly rotating. In the second, there are no movable elements, and the "stuffing" looks like a lot of microcircuits on one board.
Price
The first thing users pay attention to when they think about discs is the price. In this regard, the undoubted advantage of the HDD. Typically, a standard 1TB drive will cost at least $50. While the cost of an SSD will be about four times more expensive - about $ 200. But technology is developing rapidly, and every year the difference in pricing for the two types of drives is decreasing.
Capacity
At the beginning of the 2000s, the difference between the maximum capacities of two different types of drives was huge. In fact, the SSD then could not compete. However, already now the maximum figures are 4 TB. While the amount of HDD-memory now reaches 50 TB.
Speed
Very often, it is speed that is the indicator that users most often pay attention to. In this regard, the SSD hard drive is the leader. The speed of this drive is several times higher than that of HDD. 
Just a few seconds to download, launch the most complex games and applications, copy huge amounts of information data. And you can’t argue with this, since the acceleration of the system when using SDD for the operating system is very strongly felt in practice.
Fragmentation and defragmentation of disks
For an HDD hard drive, large files are ideal, while non-voluminous materials - photos, books and audio recordings - combined with constant copying and deleting inevitably lead to slow hard drive performance. Why it happens?
The components of the file are scattered over its surface, so the read head has to look for fragments in different sectors, wasting time. This phenomenon is called fragmentation. In order to "put things in order" and bring all parts of the files into a single chain, you need to periodically defragment. Only in this way can the speed of work be maintained at a good level. SSDs do not need such operations due to a radically different principle of operation.
Reliability and service life
SSD drives, unlike their competitors, have special moving elements. Therefore, you can use a laptop in transport, despite vibrations, and not worry about disruption of the stability of work and data loss. A completely different situation with the HDD. Here the reading head is in close proximity to the magnetized blanks. Therefore, even a slight vibration leads to the appearance of so-called broken sectors. However, the SSD design, despite its clear advantages, has the disadvantage of a limited cycle of use. Constant deletion, copying and writing of gigabytes of data reduces the working life of the solid state drive.
Shape and noise level
Everything matters in today's world. And of course, a more compact drive is a more promising popular one. In this respect, the SSD is the winner. The special design of the HDD does not allow it to be reduced to a miniature size.
The rotation of HDD drives will certainly lead to the appearance of noise - a characteristic crackle. Whereas the processes inside SSD drives are completely silent.
Results
It is impossible to unambiguously name the main winner of the battle between HDD and SSD. Each drive has its own advantages and disadvantages. For example, HDDs are slow and noisy, they are prone to mechanical failures, so they require very careful handling - no mechanical impact, but they are inexpensive and capacious. At the same time, SSDs have a limited service life and are expensive, but at the same time they are silent, fast, and do not need to be defragmented.
That is why, in order to answer the question of what exactly you need to buy, first think about the purpose for which you are purchasing the drive. If you need to save large amounts of information, and the computer will be used for social. networks and multimedia entertainment, then your choice is HDD. But if you never sit still, constantly travel, system boot speed is important to you, you hate noise and often deal with photo and video processing in various programs - feel free to choose an SSD, you won’t lose.
Greetings!
HDD vs SSD - how do they differ and which one is better?
Surely, when buying a new PC or laptop, many have noticed that it is the type of storage device installed in it - HDD or SSD - that can have a significant impact on its price. What is their difference?
Is it worth taking an ssd drive for a computer and what are the advantages of such drives? In this article, I will try to answer questions related to choosing a hard drive for various systems and needs.
The main differences between HDD and SSD
To begin with, it should be noted that despite the general purpose, SSD and HDD are completely different technologies. In fact, the difference between them is as big as the difference between a CD and a flash drive. Yes, what is there, by and large, HDD - this is a kind of CD, only made from a different material and installed in its own drive. And an SSD is a large, capacious flash drive, with a particularly fast data transfer rate, increased capacity and, if we are not talking about an external drive, then with a slightly different way of connecting to the motherboard.
Unlike a hard drive, an SSD does not carry any moving parts. HDD devices are old, analog technologies, while SSDs are new, digital.
So what are the advantages of more expensive, modern SSDs compared to older hard drives?
Firstly, SSD has a smaller size and weight, which is especially useful when assembling compact systems such as laptops and tablets.
Secondly, SSDs have a much higher data transfer rate than analog drives, because nothing needs to be written or searched out by mechanical actions. The HDD takes time to distribute the data on the platter plane, as well as to find the information already recorded on it. Especially if the search is conducted in parts of the disk that are very distant from each other. For this reason, the operating system is somewhat slower to load, files take longer to open, and programs are less responsive. But saving and reading data from a solid state drive is almost instantaneous.
Speed, as a rule, is limited only by the bandwidth of the interface. Gamers may find this useful so that they do not have to wait a long time for downloading and installing games, as well as downloading levels in them.
Thirdly, as mentioned earlier, there are no moving elements in the SSD. As a result, SSDs are quieter and more reliable – they are shock and drop resistant. So, an SSD is better suited as an external storage device for people who want to use one drive for multiple systems, or as a second hard drive for laptops.
Fourth, SSDs tend to consume less power, and there will hardly ever be unnecessary energy savings.
It's time to talk about the disadvantages of these "big flash drives"
First disadvantage, which may seem like a serious problem to many - the limited lifespan of an SSD. The fact is that flash memory has a certain number of rewriting cycles.
The rewrite cycle is the moment when the amount of downloaded data reaches the storage capacity of the drive, or rather, when all the memory cells on it are filled. But not in the literal sense of the word - from the fact that you delete data and leave some space on the disk, nothing will change.
What matters is the total weight of the data written to it over its lifetime.
For example, I uploaded a 1 GB file, then deleted it and uploaded a 2 GB file - and that already 3 GB was written to disk, even though some of them were deleted.
In addition, due to the peculiarities of the operation of the SSD, when counting, you need to multiply the amount of data recorded on it by 9-10 times. Those. 3
A gigabyte is almost 30, almost a quarter of the rewrite cycle of a 120 gigabyte disc. However, these are not exact numbers, I took it with a margin. In fact, it all depends on how the space on the drive was spent.
Do not be scared right away, on average, SSDs are designed for 3 years, or even 5 years of service. Unless, of course, hundreds of gigabytes of data are downloaded to them daily.
Unfortunately, I cannot say with certainty which disk is more durable - SSD or HDD. There are many other nuances that affect their life expectancy. But in terms of resistance to external influences, the SSD clearly wins.
The second disadvantage is the price.
The price of an SSD can be many times higher than the cost of a hard drive of the same capacity. Surely, over time, the situation will change a little, but today it is more profitable to take such a disk for a PC as an additional one, install an operating system and some applications on it, and store everything else on the HDD.
And finally, the last SSD problem, which will probably be solved soon, is the maximum amount of memory. SSDs appeared much later than hard drives, and so far even the best available models cannot hold as much data as a high-priced HDD will fit. But it is most likely only a matter of time. You can, simply, use several storage devices at once.
This ssd costs $11,000
Here is the characteristic
Conclusion.
At the moment, I don't think that buying a PC or laptop with an SSD would be a good idea for the average user. After all, its price is several times higher than the cost of the good old hard drive. Someone will consider the differences between these two types of drives important for themselves. For example, gamers are very fond of purchasing expensive equipment, even with a slight gain in system performance.
However, the speed of games, i.e. the frame rate, should not be affected by the presence of an SSD drive.
In general, without special need, I still do not recommend buying an SSD as the only internal hard drive. But as a second drive, it may well justify itself.
Write in the comments what did you choose or what are you going to choose for yourself ssd or hdd?
What is SSD vs HDD? Of course, these are beautiful numbers in various test applications, an opportunity to brag to friends and interlocutors. It has been proven by practice: solid-state drives really allow you to “revive” the system quite well. However, there are very few real "live" values. In principle, it is understandable: it is convenient to fix the difference in applications specially tailored for this, and not in games and so on.
advertising
SSD models are different: slow and fast, cheap and expensive. And it is far from always possible to equate the pairs "cheap" and "slow", "expensive" and "fast", it is enough to compare, for example, the prices of the Samsung 850 EVO 1 TB and the Kingston V310 960 GB. But is there a difference between SSDs of different categories in practice? The question is quite interesting and sometimes causing a lot of very heated debate on various Internet forums.So, our task today: no "synthetics". At all. Well, so that life does not seem like sugar, the specified condition will be supplemented with another one: the processor in the test bench will operate in two modes - at the standard frequency of 3.3 GHz (fixed, Turbo Boost disabled) and overclocked to 4.5 GHz. As a result, thanks to our partner - the company Regard, we will not only compare different models of drives with each other, but also check the dependence on CPU overclocking.
Test participants
Several different drives were selected for practical testing. First of all, hard drives, where without them? The final list of participants consisted of two HDDs and four SSDs.
- HDD Western Digital Red 4TB (WD40EFRX-68WT0N0). Of course, the choice is not the most representative, but in general it may well illustrate the situation with most modern hard drives;
- HDD Toshiba MQ01ABD050 500 GB. Quite old, but still quite relevant model of the "laptop" class. It is generally believed among users that a 2.5" form factor HDD is slower than its 3.5" "desktop" counterparts. Its testing, apparently, is complicated by the presence of BMG car parking, which is not disabled by the usual settings of the operating system: during measurements, “outliers” were found much more often than usual - indicators that differ significantly from the average, and for the worse;
- SSD GK K3 120 GB. The so-called "Chinese" SSD: one of those that can be found for sale on the well-known marketplace AliExpress and the like. Extremely tempting price tags: about 2600-2700 rubles for 120 GB, while more eminent brands “start” from the bar of 3100 rubles and above (at the time of this writing). But the level of its performance is very upsetting, judging by the tests we conducted. At that time, the conclusion was made about suitability only for a user who does not operate with large amounts of data, let's see how true it is;
- SSD Kingston V300 120GB (SV300S37A/120G). This drive is known to the general public much better and not least because of the scandal. On various Internet forums, the V300 is still taunted by everyone and sundry to this day. However, it is one of the cheapest SSDs on the market and is therefore in high demand. But how much it is inferior in reality, or is it more unfounded fears, it will become clear in the course of the review;
- SSD OCZ Vector 180 240 GB (VTR180-25SAT3-240G). This is already a solution of a class above: the latest model, new algorithms in the microcode of the controller for data protection, an updated platform in the hardware part, high speed characteristics even in those conditions where the rest are losing ground. More details can be found in the corresponding review;
- SSD Kingston HyperX Predator 480 GB (SHPM2280P2H/480G). His review was released under the heading "Shaking the Foundation": unexpectedly for the masses, Kingston turned away from its beloved SandForce platform and in January of this year released a high-speed PCI-Express M.2 NGFF drive on a Marvell controller. Yes, not anyhow, but 88SS9293. And it is unique: the only solution on this controller that is on sale.
And let Plextor show its M7e at various exhibitions for a long time, but that's all. According to the latest rumors, the M7e will be sold in the fall, when no one needs it anymore: HyperX Predator and even faster Samsung SM951 launched at retail just a month and a half ago (not yet available on the Russian market) will cover demand.
