Currently, if you are looking for a storage device for your laptop, you have two choices to pick from, very different one from the other.
These devices are called HDD (Hard Disk Drive) and SSD (Solid State Drive). HDD, being the older technology, has a lot of design drawbacks that an SSD doesn’t have, including speed limitations, mechanical components that are vulnerable to shock, or high power consumption.
Under these conditions, we see that they are slowly being replaced by SSD storage devices.
Before purchasing a storage device, whether you are talking about HDD or SSD, it is advisable to keep in mind the differences between them so that you can make the right decision.
Until recently, PC buyers had no choice as to the type of storage they could find in a laptop or desktop.
If you purchased an ultra portable device, you probably had a solid state drive as the primary drive (C: on Windows, Macintosh HD on a Mac). Any other type of computer, like a desktop or a laptop, was built with a hard disk drive (HDD). This was done mostly because of the prohibitive cost of an SSD, at first more than 100 times the price of an HDD when it was first launched, now the difference is way smaller, such as two to five times the price.
Now you can configure most systems either with a hard disk drive or with an SSD or, in some cases, with both.
But how do you choose?
We’ll explain the differences between SSDs and HDDs (or hard drives) and help you decide on their advantages and disadvantages.
The traditional hard drive is a device that stores data without the need of a computer. This means that the information on it does not “disappear” when you shut down the system, like the data that is stored in RAM. A hard drive is essentially a metal plate with a magnetic layer that stores your data.
An SSD does everything a hard drive does, but information is stored on interconnected flash chips that keep data even when there is no power. The chips can be permanently installed on the system motherboard (as on some small and ultra-portable laptops) on a PCI Express (PCIe) card (some high-end workstations and a growing number of bleeding edge consumer systems also can be fitted with PCIe SSD storage).
Or on a SATA SSD, a device that is sized, formatted and wired to fit in a laptop HDD bay. These flash memory chips are of a different type when compared to those used in USB memory drives and are usually faster and more reliable. SSDs are therefore more expensive than USB memory devices of the same capabilities.
Device life expectancy is decisive, and this feature may be the most important factor when choosing a storage device. SSDs do not have moving parts, which means that they do not have a mechanically breaking point. SSDs also have a higher life expectancy when compared to HDDs. But in the event of power outages, SSDs may be more vulnerable than conventional HDDs.
Speed is also a critical feature, and if you are looking for a faster storage device, then an SSD wins hands down. These storage devices are sometimes up to ten times faster than a traditional HDD.
Because of the price difference, when dealing with a large amount of data where speed is not crucial, HDDs are still the preferred method of storage. If you need a larger size storage device, HDD has a better quality ratio.