Solid State Drives (SSD) and Hard Disk Drives (HDD) are currently the most popular storage devices available. While HDD is a more traditional technology, SSD is new and already replacing HDD.
Whether you’re buying a new device or making do with an old one, having good data storage space is essential today. With the rapid increase in online consumption of data and more and more work shifting to digital modes, storage solutions have become necessary.
Have you run out of storage space? Has your hard disk slowed down to sloth speed? You are in for a hardware upgrade. As with everything digital, storage technologies have evolved. They are now faster and more efficient. For any kind of device – a laptop, a smartphone, or even a server to host your website – it’s crucial to have the proper storage solution.
Choosing the right data storage device isn’t just a matter of capacity and cost. The device’s performance, power usage, and reliability also account for a lot.
This article will provide a complete guide to both solutions. It will focus on the major differences between SSD and HDD and the advantages of SSD over HDD.
Table of Contents
What is an HDD?
It is a traditional, spinning data storage hardware. The data is stored magnetically on the spinning disks inside the device. The HDD has an enclosure that contains several heads (transducers) and a series of platters containing ferromagnetic coating. These heads read and write data on the disk. It is similar to how vinyl record albums and players work.
Since the hard disk contains so many mechanical components, it’s the slowest part of a device and also very fragile. Hard disk drives have been around for a long time, much longer than SSDs. As a result, they are lower in price while offering a large amount of storage space. They can store years worth of photos, videos, and files.
What is an SSD?
Functionally, a solid-state drive (SSD) is also a storage device and does everything an HDD does. It’s called a ‘solid state’ because there are no movable parts in it. The data is stored on flash memory chips, in the form of electrical charges. Due to the lack of moving parts, it is more energy-efficient and less prone to wear and tear.
SSDs differ from HDDs in terms of size and performance. The absence of a spinning disk allows it to be available in sizes as small as a stick of gum or even a postal stamp. You can use SSDs for smaller devices like slim laptops, convertibles, or 2 in 1s due to their variable storage capacities.
The access time with SSDs is shorter because, unlike HDDs, users don’t have to wait for platter rotation to start up before accessing it. In simpler words, an SSD is built to remember the location of the data stored. On the other hand, HDD has to first look for stored data’s location to access it.
Advantages of SSD over HDD: A Head-to-Head Comparison
The traditional HDD has been the storage device of choice for a long time, for both desktops and laptops. The reasons for its popularity are high storage capacity and low costs. However, the more recent solution, SDD, has been amassing a lot of attention and even slowly replacing HDDs.
Compare | SSD | HDD |
---|---|---|
Access time | Access speeds for an SSD are around 35 to 100 microseconds. | Access times for an HDD is around 5k to 10k microseconds. |
Price | Prices for a solid-state drive is higher than a HDD. | HDD are considerably cheaper than a SSD, even more so for over 1TB drives. |
Reliability | An SSD has no moving parts and it uses flash memory to store data. | An HDD has moving parts, so the more it’s used the faster it wears out. |
Capacity | A large SSD over 1TB tends to be outside of a lot of peoples budgets | HDD drives are reasonably price compared to a SSD |
Sound | Zero sound emitted. | An HDD has lots of moving parts and can be overwhelming |
Tempreature | Minimal heat do to not having any moveable parts | An HDD generates more heat than a SSD do to the nature of moving parts. |
1. Speed and Performance
There is a significant difference between the speeds of SSD and HDD storage devices. HDD has a spinning, ferromagnetic disk that reads and writes data. The speed of an HDD depends on the rotations of this disk. The RPM or rotations per minute determine the number of times the data will be read or written.
SSDs, on the other hand, are popular for their high speed and performance. Since they use electrical circuitry and don’t have moving parts, they store data in memory chips, leading to faster data processing. SSDs have a shorter wait time when starting up apps and services or even performing heavy computing tasks.
A typical midrange 512GB SSD from Intel offers 10x faster read speeds and 20x faster write speeds than a midrange HDD, which offers data transfer speeds of only 140 MB/s. Similarly, a SATA III hard drive 7,200 RPM processes data at a speed of 150 MB/s. At the same time, an SSD with a SATA III connection delivers a read and write speed of 550 MB/s and 520 MB/s, respectively.
Thus, SSD offers significant speed and performance advantage when it comes to specific tasks like:
- Sequential read/write operations: The speed difference between SSD and HDD is very pronounced when copying and moving huge files. SSD allows copying 20GB files in less than 10 seconds, whereas, on an HDD, it’ll take at least two minutes.
- Small “4K” read/write operations: Whether you’re running a Windows or macOS, opening programs, or browsing the web, you’re opening and manipulating thousands of small files. These files are stored in small blocks of data, usually sized at 4K. The faster a disk can read and write these 4K blocks, the smoother and quicker your system operates. For HDDs, the speed ranges from 0.1 to 1.7 MB/s, whereas SSDs operate at 50-250 MB/s.
2. Lifespan and Reliability
SSDs have a limited lifespan and fewer number of write cycles as compared to HDD. However, with improvements in technology, this is no longer an issue today. This means that every cell in a flash memory drive can be written to and erased a limited number of times, and the more the data written on a cell, the faster it wears out.
As a result, typically, an SSD cell survives for 3,000 write cycles nowadays. However, with advanced technology and wear leveling principle, the write operations are spread evenly across cells to minimize cell death. Modern SSDs also have spare cells to replace those that go bad. So, larger SSDs have longer lifespans.
There are no limits to an HDD’s write cycles. However, the spinning platter leads to wear and tear and fragmentation. The traditional technology and moving parts also cost a lot of energy. As a result, the device starts heating up and leads to increased electricity bills in the case of desktops and servers.
Since SSDs do not have rotating parts, they are much more energy-efficient and less likely to suffer physical damage and fragmentation.
3. Storage Capacity
When it comes to large storage capacities, HDD wins. Storage space in HDD can range from 40GB to 12TB. Even SSDs with higher storage capacities and better interfaces are available, but they are costly. SSDs over 1TB are out of most people’s price range, whereas HDDs with large storage spaces are available at affordable prices.
4. Costs
While SSDs offer superior speed and performance, they are more expensive than HDDs. HDDs offer more storage space for lesser prices. This distinction is regardless of the device you’re buying.
The prices of flash storage vary based on demand and supply. While the costs of SSDs have decreased, there is still a significant price difference between SSDs and HDDs. Faster, higher-end HDD models with 500GB cost between $25 and $50, whereas a 500GB SSD can cost anywhere between $60 and $150.
5. Gaming Experience
Gaming requires shuffling huge amounts of data back and forth, such as loading levels, character models, etc. Video games also contain high-resolution textures, models, and audio that could add up to 100GB of data in some cases or even more in others. As a result, gamers need a computer drive that accesses data quickly for a crisper gaming experience.
SSDs are the best choice for an optimum gaming experience. Speed and capacity are paramount requirements of gaming. A game that takes two to three minutes to load on an HDD takes under a minute on an SSD. Faster loading times help with the immersive experience required for a game. However, initial load is not the only time-taking thing, and a game also needs to access a wide variety of stored data.
Bottom Line
Thus, a detailed comparison of SSD and HDD on various features reveals that an SSD is a better option for storage devices. The clear advantages it has over HDD include:
- Higher performance: Instead of mechanical parts like arms and heads, an SSD uses electricity to process data. Therefore, it delivers faster performance, which also means quicker boot time, greater data movement, and higher bandwidth.
- Lower energy usage: Small amounts of electrical current moving through SSDs require much less energy than moving parts of an HDD.
- Durability: HDDs may seem more durable since SSDs start leaking when powered down for long. However, SSD’s durability has increased due to storage intelligence that is added to the controller. This prevents data leakage or corruption. These technologies also include error-correcting code (ECC), garbage collection, and read and write caching.
The only disadvantages of SSDs are their prices for greater storage capacities. However, its advantages far outweigh the costs. For good speed, performance, and durability, an SSD is the right choice. However, if you have budget constraints, you can use SSD as the primary drive for your operating system and most frequently used programs. For storing pictures, videos, or documents, you can purchase a large HDD.