SSD Vs HDD Difference : Which is Better For You?

SSD vs HDD : What’s the Difference? Know the benefits and drawbacks of selecting an SSD vs HDD. Learn how an SSD can accelerate your computer.

Opting for the good storage is not mare comparing the cost and capacity. The type of storage that your computer utilizes, including power consumption and reliability, also do matter. The two major options to take into account are Solid state drives (SSDs) and hard disk drives (HDDs).

Almost all the laptops are now available with a Hard Disk Drive (HDD). For average users, these hard drives are adequate. It is advisable to go for the SSD instead of the HDD if you are a heavy user, such as a professional video editor or a compulsive gamer etc.

Here, let us now know the best use for each one and how side by side they compare.

What is HDD?

HDD Full form: Hard Disk Drive.

For over half a century, hard disk drives have been around, gradually elevating their storage capacity and reducing their size. To read and write data, HDDs are provided with spinning disks, or platters.

An HDD is a data storage device inside your computer. It has spinning disks where data is stored magnetically. The HDD has an arm that reads and writes data on the disk with many ‘heads’ (transducers).

How HDD Works?

In order to read and write data, HDD has the provision of read/write head floating above the rotating platter. The quicker the platter spins, the faster the HDD performs.

An I/O controller and firmware are also the part of HDD, which direct the hardware and interact with the remaining device.

The head has to move to the correct position to read or write data on a certain sector of a platter and then have to wait for the sector to pass beneath it as the platter rotates.

What is SSD?

SSD Full form: Solid State Drive.

SSD is making waves in the computer industry’s storage capacity. The computer industry is progressing at a fast pace with innovative technologies. We can expect more innovative devices in the near future.

Solid state drives are free from moving parts. Solid state drive (SSD) stores data in solid state memory. Data access method is same in SSD as that of normal hard disk drives. SSD utilize non volatile memory such as micro chips to store consistent data.

The features of SSD laptop include lower access time, reduced latency and withstand physical shock. Hard disk drives can be replaced with solid state drives in laptops as both use same type of interface.

How SSD Works?

The SSD drive serves the same purpose as HDD but functions entirely differently from it. A solid state medium, usually NAND, is used (often known as flash). Data is written to or read by a controller from the NAND, which is considered as the brains of the computer.

Instead of depending on spinning disks or moving parts, SSD utilizes semiconductor chips to send and receive data. These chips are split into pages where the data is stored. They can run at speed well above those of a conventional HDD because they have no moving parts.

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What is SSD in laptop?

Being non-mechanical, SSDs are also used in laptops. This Solid State Drives also consume less power, enhancing the battery life. Though conventional hard drives also come with lower-priced laptops (one way to minimize their costs), most midrange to high-end machines are available with an SSD.

Hard disk drives are also more susceptible to physical shocks and vibration. They are likely to get damaged during frequent travel. You need to park the heads using a special program to prevent damaging of surfaces inside the hard disk drive.

If you drop your laptop, there are higher chances that the read/write head of a hard drive which is in motion, may lead to data loss.

With SSDs, this doesn’t happen. Solid state drives (SSD) are shock-resistant. Therefore, solid state drives are in clear winning position when compared to hard disk drives in terms of withstanding physical shock.

Responsiveness is also another benefit of SSDs. Actions like loading and saving programs and files make SSDs much more concise.

SSD vs HDD Difference

Feature	Solid State Drive (SSD)	Hard Disk Drive (HDD)
Performance	Very fast	Average
Reading / Writing Speed	Fast	Slow
Power Consumption	Low	High
Moving Parts	None	More than 2
Latency	Low	High
Fragmentation	Doesn’t occur	High chance
Cost	Expensive	Cheap
Storage Capacity	limited	Variable
Boot Time	About 10-13 seconds	About 30 – 45 seconds
Durability	More durable	Less durable

Comparison between SSDs and HDDs

Without the distractions and struggles of slow performance, SSDs will help you work more effectively, build media, and play. An SSD eases the way for an enhanced experience, from efficiency to reliability and capacity.

SSD vs. HDD Pricing

The flash storage market is dynamic and varies on the basis of supply and demand. Although the price of SSDs has dropped a lot, there is still a large gap in prices.

As compared to HDDs, SSDs are more expensive per amount of storage (in gigabytes, or GB, and terabytes, or TB), but the gap is narrowing as SSD prices start to drop.

SSD vs HDD Speed

SSDs are much faster than HDDs in terms of speed, since SSDs do not have moving parts and electrical circuits as that of HDDs.

A typical 7200 RPM HDD can provide 80 to 160 MB/s of read/write speed, whereas a regular SSD can provide 200 to 550 MB/s of read/write speed, making it a perfect option for better performance.

This transforms into faster boot times, faster file transfers, and better program openings for a laptop user.

SSD vs HDD Capacities

SSD with capacities more than 2 TB are rarely found and are expensive. The laptops are equipped with 500GB to 1TB units as primary drives in systems.

Although 500 GB is currently considered a “base” hard drive capacity for premium laptops, pricing issues can drop it down to 128 GB or 256 GB for lower-priced SSD-based systems.

SSD vs HDD Reliability

While determining the uncorrupted and the reliable data storage, SSDs come in picture.

Because of improved engineering, today’s SSDs also deliver a longer life cycle and greater endurance. And since they are available in smaller sizes, vibration or heat output is practically absent, which increases the life of the drive.

SSD vs HDD Lifespan

In the event that you drop your laptop bag or your device gets shaken while it is running, an SSD is more likely to keep your data secure as it has no moving parts.

When the machine is off, most hard drives park their read/write heads, but when they are running, the heads travel at a distance of a few nanometers over the drive platter. Furthermore, even the parking brakes have limits.

For the rough handling of the equipment, an SSD is recommended.

SSD vs HDD Power Consumption

As compared to the HDD, SSD consumes less power, emit less heat, and do not make any noise. Just 2 watts of your battery would be consumed by an SSD, while an HDD consumes 7 watts. Hence, for a laptop, it means extra operating time. The lack of any moving parts means that no noise is present either.

SSD vs HDD The Gaming Experience

With an SSD, you can enjoy much smoother gaming. An SSD lets games load and run faster, considering the vast amount of data a game has to shuffle back and forth (character models, loading levels, etc.).

While gaming, you can also experience less stutter, as the rest of your PC does not have to wait for game data to load, which provides quite a benefit, particularly in the eSports field.

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Benefits of Buying an SSD Laptops

You will experience faster booting, faster opening of applications and files, incredibly fast data transfer, and so on if you have an SSD in your laptop. As their games will load easily, compulsive gamers will appreciate the SSD experience.

The SSD increases the laptop battery’s power because it uses less power than laptops driven by the HDD. These laptops do not make much noise and display a higher degree of durability.

Since the SSDs are shock-proof and vibration-resistant, SSD laptops are comparatively safer than conventional HDD laptops. In the SSD, there are no moving elements. These laptops can, therefore, withstand damage. In contrast to the HDD, this means that the SSD is a better storage device.

DraWbacks of SSD

Here are some drawbacks using SSDs.

⛔ Upfront costs are significantly higher for SDD than for HDDs.
⛔ SSDs have a limited number of times that a portion of the drive can write, remove, and rewrite data.
⛔ A SSD’s maximum capacity is limited. However, flash memory advances are continuously increasing the storage ability of SSDs.

Which is better SSD or HDD?

If you are just looking for a cheap way to store files, then with HDDs, you can still get a lot. At competitive rates, they offer loads of terabytes.

But if price is not the limitation, our vote goes for SSDs. They are super-fast, long-lasting and reliable.

But you will need to keep your drive clean inspite of whether you are using an SSD or HDD. It takes a lot of disk space for your operating system to work, and running low on space can cause tremendous slowdowns and maybe even crashes.

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