In this article, I give you an SSD vs HDD Comparison. Before we begin, a brief explanation and a history lesson about these two types of mass storage of information.
HDD (Hard Disk Drive) – one of the first forms of non-volatile memory *, even today it is one of the most popular choices for mass storage.
Hard Disk is essentially a multi-metal plate with a magnetic coating that stores your data. As these plates rotate, a hand with a needle on top (something like the one used to play gramophone records) moves as the plates rotate to read or write information in the right places.
SSD (Solid State Drive) – By function, an SSD is the same as a Hard Disk. A place to store your videos, movies, pictures, music, games, projects, etc. But instead of magnetized plates and a movable arm with a needle on top, the SSD consists of multiple interconnected flash memory chips that hold the information even when there is no power supply.
These chips can be embedded in a number of ways:
Permanently soldered to the motherboard (on some net and ultrabooks **),
On a PCI Express card (often with high-end desktops), pci-express-ssd.
A box that is the same shape as the HDD and aims to be replaced in a device (with all other devices) ssd.
HDD technology is relatively outdated, given how old the computers themselves are.
Just remember the cult image of the IBM 350 RAMAC from ’56 which used 50 plates of 24 PO (60cm) in diameter to store an incredible 3.75MB.RAMAC Engineering Prototype, IBM San Jose, 1956.
The device pointed out above is a prototype of this famous Hard Disk, which took up the same space as two full-size commercial refrigerators today. This monstrosity was declared obsolete as early as ’69, and until then, the biggest users were parts of the government and some industries.
The early 80s HDD of 5.25 ″ was accepted as the standard, which was soon redesigned into 2 variants – 3.5 ″ for the desktop-class of computers and 2.5 ″ for laptops that were introduced a couple of years later. The connection cables were changed from IDE (Today they call this parallel ATA or PATA port) to SCSI to today’s standard, serial ATA port (SATA).
All of these ports do the same thing though, they connect the HDD so you can read and write information to it. Today’s standard for 2.5 ″ and 3.5 ″ HDDs is SATA, but for those who want a little more speed, a much faster PCIe interface is still supported. Hard disk capacities have increased from a couple of megabytes to a couple of terabytes, an increase of about 1,000,000 times. Today’s 3.5 ″ HDDs have a capacity of up to 10TB ***, while those of 2.5 ″ have up to 4TB.
SSDs, on the other hand, have a much shorter history. Engineers and ordinary consumers have always had a certain amount of love for stationary forms of mass storage. And no, we won’t mention bubble memory. Today’s flash memory is just a continuation of the same idea, as it doesn’t need constant current to hold information. One of the first SSDs was built into some netbooks in the late 2000s. For example, the Asus Eee PC 700 series used an SSD of EVEN 2GB.
In computers like this, SSD chips were permanently soldered to the motherboard. However, as all types of laptops grew in power, SSD capacities increased and ended up on a standardized order of 2.5 veličine. This allowed you to replace your slow, old HDD with new fancy technology. The maximum capacity of these SSDs of 2.5 ″ is 4TB, but Samsung has almost released a version of EVEN 16TB for devices that need it, such as servers.
- Non-volatile memory is memory that is not lost when you turn off the power, as happens with RAM.
** Netbooks are smaller, weaker, and cheaper cousins of Notebooks / Laptops, with a screen diagonal of 5 ″ -12 ″, and a weight of around 1kg. Ultrabooks are thin laptops with batteries that last a very long time and components that consume little power for their specifications. They were created because of the need for light, portable but no less fast and powerful computers.
*** 1 TB (TeraByte) = 1024GB
SSD vs HDD – The Winner is…
Well, it depends. No, no, it really depends. What do you need it for, how long do you plan to use it, how high are the chances that it will fall out during use, etc.
The factors on the basis of which we will evaluate and evaluate these two technologies are the following:
Price
Capacity
Speed
Fragmentation
Endurance
Availability
Size
Noise
So, without further ado, let’s get started. The first, and for some the most important factor in this competition will be none other than:
Price
SSDs are much more expensive than HDDs looking at the price of one GB. For example, a 2.5 HD HDD with a capacity of 1TB * costs around 50 euros, and the cheapest SSD of the same capacity and size costs 240 euros. This means that 1GB of HDD space costs about 5 cents, while 1GB of SSD space costs as much as 24 cents. The difference of as much as 5 times.
Capacity
Aww. This is a slightly sensitive topic, especially bearing in mind the conclusion from the previous section. The largest SSDs in production for consumers are currently 4TB, and they are also extremely rare and expensive. You are more likely to find one between 500GB and 1TB if you already need it as the main storage for your system. You always have the option of cloud ** storage, although it comes with its advantages and disadvantages. The advantage of a local warehouse is that there are no additional costs, you buy it once and that’s it.
Speed
This is the time for SSDs to shine. Em, we spit them out that they are smaller than HDDs, em more expensive. But they are way faster. To put it simply – your computer will turn on at least 2 times faster, and most likely faster than that, in case you decide on an HDD’s more expensive cousin.
Fragmentation
Because of the way HDDs are designed, they work best with files housed in consecutive blocks. This way, the hard head can read all the data in one go, instead of jumping all over the board and looking for parts. However, as hard files load, large files are often shuffled across the board, which is called fragmentation.
Although algorithms for reading and writing information have reached a point where the effect of fragmentation is barely noticeable, it exists. SSDs on the other hand cannot suffer from this disease, mostly because they have no moving parts, but information can be stored anywhere within the SSD itself without affecting the final speed.
Endurance
As we have pointed out countless times so far, SSDs have no moving parts, so there is a higher chance that your data will survive in case you drop it, or if you are hit by some not too weak earthquake. Although HDDs “park” their pins while they are turned off, they move a few nanometers as they move, so they are more prone to mechanical data damage. If endurance is important to you, SSD wins again.
Availability
Had this text been written say 6 years ago, while SSDs were still a new technology in the consumer electronics market, this section would have made sense. Although all manufacturers are still pulling towards HDDs, primarily because they are an established piece of technology and because they are cheaper for all parties involved, SSDs are slowly taking their share. Still, there are more and more thin, light laptops with 256GB SSDs or even 512GB instead of HDDs.
Size
Because HDDs are based on moving plates/plates, there is a limit to how far we can physically reduce them. There was an initiative for a while to make a new standardized 1.8 ″ HDD, but since the maximum amount of space they managed to squeeze into that space was only 320GB, everyone collectively raised their hands and switched to flash storage with devices like phablets and smartphones. As for SSDs, they have no limit, so most likely, when we overcome HDDs, they will start making smaller SSDs.
Noise
Even the quietest of all HDDs emit some amount of noise as the plates spin and the needle jumps on them, especially if the entire system is installed incorrectly. Again, faster HDDs will make more noise than slower ones, for obvious reasons. Uh, if there were no problems with capacity and price, SSDs would take the victory blindfolded. But, without further procrastination and increasing the number of words in the text, let’s move on to…
Summary
There are more HDDs, in more places, they are cheaper and can store more data. SSDs on the other hand are more durable, quieter, will soon be smaller, and of course – do not suffer from fragmentation (which is actually speed) – faster. As for the duration of the component itself in optimal conditions, everything has a shelf life. Even yogurt.
SSDs are actually small cells on which data is written by flashing light into them. Admittedly, the technology itself is much more complicated, but this is what you should know – given the technology to optimize the use of these cells, the chances are very high that you will throw away your SSD because it is outdated (after about 6 years) rather than because spoiled and worn out his writing and reading cycles.
So, weigh what is important to you and choose accordingly.
1TB – 1024GB (lots of space)
** cloud – a new storage technology, where you send your information and data to a server somewhere in the world, and from where, with Internet access, you can download it to one of your devices. In other words, they do not take up local space.