What is an Internal Solid-State Drive?
An SSD (Solid State Drive) is an ultra-fast data storage virtually impervious to damage due to collision or vibration. SSD Drive has adopted the same technology used with USB portable drives which use flash-based non-volatile memory. These drives are mounted into desktops, laptops, or tablet computers. When we talk of virtuous property, they are not magnetically encoded, which further means they are impervious to demagnetization. They are called solid because they do not have moving parts.
Unlike the traditional HDD (Hard Disk Drive), which uses a spinning magnetic metal platter and ahead to read or write data on its memory, an SSD Drive does not have a mechanical arm to read and write data. It uses a controller to read and write data. Some SSDs have inbuilt DRAM to cache essential data.
Three types of SSDs differ from one another by the speed of data transfers. The first one is the flash drive which connects through USB (Universal Serial Bus). The second type is a 2.5 internal SSD connected to the computer's motherboard through the SATA (Serial Attachment) bus like the standard hard drive. The third type of this SSD Drive is (m.2), which looks like RAM sticks and can be connected directly to computers that support it. It can also use the PCIe lanes for connection.
What is an SSD used for?
- SSD's have huge applications in the following areas:
- Gaming- SSD Drive is best for gaming as it improves performance and gaming experience. It is a massive improvement from a traditionally used HDD Drive which had a lagging effect on gaming.
- Servers- enterprises and other large companies need better SSDs to have fast read and writes, ensuring the clients are served in a better way and conveniently.
- Business companies- working with voluminous amounts of data, for example, companies that mine and analyze data, would rely on SSDs for faster access and faster data analysis.
- Mobility- SSDs have low power consumption, thus improved battery life in laptops and tablets. They are also shock-resistant, and therefore they are preferred since they are not prone to data loss.
In general, SSDs are used in notebooks and Linux laptops where lightness and area storage density are desired and boot drives for operating systems, cache drives, database servers, and other applications.
Is SSD better than HDD?
There is no upfront response to this question because there are many variables and trade-offs before deciding individually if an SSD Drive is better than an HDD Drive. Others may argue that an SSD Drive is better because of fast access to programs but let us see why their notion could be wrong.
Price - the price curve of HDD is falling each day, favoring the low-budget individuals. The SSD, on the other hand, is typically sold in dollars per gigabyte, which is more expensive.
Capacity - commercial HDDs' capacities range from 40 GB to 12 TB. You can get lower capacity at lower prices. By this, you are enjoying low prices with larger files. SSDs may be up to 4TB in capacity. The lower one's going for about 160-256GB.
Speed- SSDs have always been faster than traditional hard drives. For example, SATA III hard drive speeds will be around 100MB/s. Average speeds for PCIe or M.2 SSDs will be from 1.2GB/s up to about 1.4GB/s.?
Best PC SSDs at glance
- Toshiba OCZ RD400 – best PCIe SSD
- Silicon Power US70 – best M.2 SSD
- Samsung 860 Pro – best SATA 3 SSD
- HP S700 Pro – best endurance SSD
- Intel 750 Series – best U.2 SSD
- Intel 760p Series SSD – best SSD boot drive
To decide which SSD Drive is the best, ask yourself, what is the PC being used for? For Gaming? For CCTV storage? For Office work? The main reason to use M.2 is for the throughput performance, which is four times that of a 2.5 internal SSD, but the storage cost is higher on M.2 and lower on SATA HDDs. Desktop for office applications may have one M.2 512GB for OS, two 2.5 internal SSDs for office apps and files, and two larger HDDs 8TB for videos, pictures, and backups.
Can a laptop have both SSD and HDD?
Yes, for sure, you can use an SSD and HDD for laptop computer if it has an SSD slot in it. For old generation laptops, they may not have SSD slots. Most recent generation laptops in the market have both HDD and SSD pre-installed. Some create an empty slot for SSD, which will then allow expansion. For laptop computer, if you are lucky to have an HDD and an SSD and you are not aware where to install the operating system? I recommend installing it in an SSD because an SSD is on average eight times better in speed than an HDD.
How much SSD is enough?
This question depends on the field you are pursuing; programmers may need a different SSD Drive capacity from gaming designers. Therefore, this question will depend on your area of interest. If we consider programmers running Android studio, they may need 512 GB of SSD Drive. Gamers who use a blender and other software to create videos may need a different package depending on the software's space and the plugins they will need to use.