SSD vs HDD

Most people now buy laptops for their computing needs and have
to make the decision between getting either a Solid State Drive
(SSD) or Hard Disk Drive (HDD) as the storage component. So
which of the two is the better choice, an SSD or HDD? Theres no
straight-forward answer to this question; each buyer has different
needs and you have to evaluate the decision based on those
needs, your preferences, and of course budget. Even though the
price of SSDs has been falling, the price per gigabyte advantage
is still strongly with HDDs. Yet, if performance and fast bootup is
your primary consideration and money is secondary, then SSD is
the way to go. For the remainder of this article, we will make a
comparison of SSD and HDD storage and go over the good, the
bad, and the ugly of both.
What is an SSD?
Well make no assumptions here and keep this article on a level
that anyone can understand. You might be shopping for a
computer and simply wondering what the heck SSD actually
means? To begin, SSD stands for Solid State Drive. Youre
probably familiar with USB memory sticks - SSD can be thought
of as an oversized and more sophisticated version of the humble
USB memory stick. Like a memory stick, there are no moving
parts to an SSD. Rather, information is stored in microchips.
Conversely, a hard disk drive uses a mechanical arm with a
read/write head to move around and read information from the
right location on a storage platter. This difference is what makes

SSD so much faster. As an analogy, whats quicker? Having to

walk across the room to retrieve a book to get information or
simply magically having that book open in front of you when you
need it? Thats how an HDD compares to an SSD; it simply
requires more physical labor (mechanical movement) to get
information.
A typical SSD uses what is called NAND-based flash memory.
This is a non-volatile type of memory. What does non-volatile
mean you ask? The simple answer is that you can turn off the disk
and it wont forget what was stored on it. This is of course an
essential characteristic of any type of permanent memory. During
the early days of SSD, rumors floated around saying stored data
would wear off and be lost after only a few years. Regardless,
that rumor is certainly not true with todays technology, as you can
read and write to an SSD all day long and the data storage
integrity will be maintained for well over 200 years. In other words,
the data storage life of an SSD can outlive you!
An SSD does not have a mechanical arm to read and write data, it
instead relies on an embedded processor (or brain) called a
controller to perform a bunch of operations related to reading and
writing data. The controller is a very important factor in
determining the speed of the SSD. Decisions it makes related to
how to store, retrieve, cache and clean up data can determine the
overall speed of the drive. We wont get into the nitty-gritty details
for the various tasks it performs such as error correction, read and
write caching, encryption, and garbage collection to name a few.
Yet, suffice to say, good controller technology is often what

separates an excellent SSD from a good one. An example of a

fast controller today is the SandForce SATA 3.0 (6GB/s) SSD
controller that supports burst speeds up to 550MB/s read and
write speeds. The next gen SandForce 3700 family of controllers
was announced in late 2013, and is quoted to reach a blistering
1,800MB/s read/write sequential speeds as well as 150K/80K
random IOPS.
Finally, you may be wondering what an SSD looks like and how
easy it is to replace a hard drive with an after-market device. If
you look at the images below, youll see the top and undersides of
a typically-sized 2.5 SSD. The technology is encased inside
either a plastic or metal case and looks like nothing more than
what a battery might:

The form factor of the SSD is actually the same as a regular hard
drive. It comes in a standard 1.8, 2.5, or 3.5 size that can fit into
the housing and connectors for the same-sized hard drives. The
connector used for these standard sizes is SATA. There are
smaller SSDs available that use whats called mini-SATA (mSATA)
and fit into the mini-PCI Express slot of a laptop.
What is an HDD?
Hard Disk Drives, or HDD in techno-parlance, have been around
for donkey's years relative to the technology world. HDDs were

first introduced by IBM in 1956 - yes folks this is nearly 60-year

old technology, thank goodness vacuum tubes for TVs didnt last
so long! An HDD uses magnetism to store data on a rotating
platter. A read/write head floats above the spinning platter reading
and writing data. The faster the platter spins, the faster an HDD
can perform. Typical laptop drives today spin at either 5400 RPM
(Revolutions per Minute) or 7200RPM, though some server-based
platters spin at up to 15,000 RPM!
The major advantage of an HDD is that it is capable of storing lots
of data cheaply. These days, 1 TeraByte (1,024 gigabytes) of
storage is not unusual for a laptop hard drive, and the density
continues to grow. However, the cost per gigabyte is hard to
calculate now-a-days since there are so many classes to consider,
though it is safe to say that all HDDs are substantially cheaper
than SSDs. As a comparison, the popular WD Black (1TB) goes
for roughly $69 on most websites while the Crucial M500 (960GB)
and Samsung 840 EVO (1TB) SSDs go for $369 and
$439 respectively, over five times the price of the WD Black. So if
you want cheap storage and lots of it, using a standard hard drive
is definitely the more appealing way to go.
When it comes to appearance, HDDs essentially look the same
from the outside as SSDs. HDDs predominantly use SATA
interface. The most common size for laptop hard drives is the 2.5
form factor while a larger 3.5 form factor is used in desktop
computers. The larger size allows for more platters inside and
thus more storage capacity. Some desktop hard drives can store

up to 6TB of data! Below is an example of what an HDD looks like

using the Hitachi Deskstar 7K4000 4TB hard drive: