When it comes to internal storage devices for your PC, HDD (Hard Disk Drive), and SSD (Solid State Drive) are the most popular options these days. It is an SSD that is newer in terms of technology, however, at this point, it has been more than 30 years since the first SSD was released.
Despite being released so long ago, there is still a good amount of confusion among buyers on which to choose – should they choose an SSD or should they get an HDD, what are the differences between the two, which is better for them, etc. are some of the most common questions that they have.
Today we decided to help you make an informed decision when getting an SSD or HDD. So, without any further ado, let’s get started.
Overview of HDD (Hard Disk Drive)
HDD (Hard Disk Drive) is also popularly known as a hard drive or a hard disk. It is an electro-mechanical storage device. The way it works is that the data is stored in metallic disks that are coated with magnetic materials. These metal disks rotate inside the assembly. The assembly also consists of a moving actuator arm that has a magnetic recording head that is responsible for reading the data on these metallic disks. This type of storage device is primarily used currently as it is cheap, reliable, and has support for enormous capacity.
This makes it perfect for various types of uses, especially those that involve requiring lots of storage capacity.
Affordability and storage space is the main reason people still opt for Hard Disk Drive these days.
Speed is nothing to write home about with Hard Disk Drives. It is not slow, however, it is also not as fast as the SSD, more on that later.
However, one of the disadvantages of this type of storage is that it is very much affected by physical damage. This is due to the presence of various mechanical components inside the unit.
Overview of SSD (Solid State Drive):
Now, moving on to SSD. The SSD (Solid State Drive) was released almost 35 years after the first hard disk drive was released. And, it is very much modern when compared to a hard disk in terms of design, form factor, speed, etc. This type of storage device has no moving parts and is entirely electronic-based. It uses integrated circuit assemblies to store the data and does not rely on any moving parts. These are very fast, and that is the main reason why people opt for this type of storage device. Not only are they fast, but they also run very silently. The reason for these being fast is the quicker access time, and also the lower latency.
In this type of storage device, the data is stored in numerous semiconductor cells. Depending on the type of SSD, the number of bits stored in each cell varies. SLC or Single Level Cells can store 1 bit of data, MLC or Multi-Level Cells can store 2 bits, TLC or Triple-Level Cells can store 3 bits, and QLC or Quad Level Cells can store 4 bits of data.
The higher the number of bits of data it can store per cell, the less expensive it is. So, QLC is the cheapest, whereas SLC is the most expensive. However, SLC is also of the highest quality, reliability, and performance.
SSD vs HDD: Which is better?
In terms of speed, performance, latency, the SSD wins, without any question. How much faster are solid-state drives compared to hard disk drives? Well, significantly faster. Generally, Hard Disk Drives have Read, and Write speeds of around 150 MB/s, and 60 MB/s respectively. Whereas, Solid State Drives generally have around Read and Write speeds of around 500 MB/s and 200 MB/s respectively.
How much of this does it translate to real-world usage, however, is more important.
As it turns out, a lot. If you have never used a Solid State Drive, and you have always used HDD, then once you use a Solid State Drive, you are never going back to a hard disk drive.
The operating system loads faster, that is, your PC will boot faster, all of your applications and games installed would be loading faster. The entire user experience would be snappier, faster, and more enjoyable. As for the role of SSD in gaming, maps would load faster, your game would launch quicker, less amount of time on the loading screens, etc. are some of the key advantages when it comes to gaming.
So, by now it should be very clear that the Solid State Drive is better than the Hard Disk Drive for almost every consumer. The only reason one should be opting for Hard Disk Drive is affordability, and if they need to store lots of content and speed is not that much of a priority as it would be very expensive to get a Solid State Drive with a large capacity. We are talking about multiple Terabytes of data here.
But, for most general users, Solid State Drive is undoubtedly the storage type they should opt for.
In terms of personal perception, HP’s system is painfully slow. Every click in Windows is accompanied by a massive delay, boot time takes four minutes to fully complete, and launching Chrome takes about 15 seconds. It isn’t fun.
In comparison, the 2017 MacBook Pro is running Windows 10 and sporting a fast NVME SSD. Sequential reads are nearly 56 times faster (fifty-six times faster!) and small 4K read operations are about 226 times faster. As you might expect from the improved performance numbers, Windows takes 10 seconds to boot. There is no visible delay when launching Chrome — it’s just there. Night and day.
Benefits and Disadvantages of SSDs and HDDs
Hard drives are still around in financial plan and more seasoned frameworks, however SSDs are presently the standard in standard frameworks and very good quality workstations like the Apple MacBook Pro, which doesn’t offer a hard drive even as a configurable choice. Work areas and less expensive workstations, then again, will keep on offering HDDs, basically for the following not many years.
All things considered, both SSDs and hard drives do a similar work: They boot your framework and store your applications and individual records. However, each sort of capacity has its own special qualities. How would they vary, and for what reason would you need to get one over the other?
