No seek time or latency - The lack of moving parts contributes to two key performance characteristics resulting from the elimination of mechanical (physical) movement: no seek time or latency, since there are no heads to move or spinning platters to wait for. Power usage does vary however, and not all SSDs are ultra low power. Power usage - A solid state drive generally consumes less power, and therefore generates less heat, especially compared to a 7200 rpm hard drive. In quiet environments, this can be a nice plus. Silence - A solid state disk is silent and vibration-free. ThatРІР‚в„ўs an extreme case, but anyone traveling where laptop availability is critical should definitely consider and SSD.

Advantages and disadvantages of SSD PERMALINKР”Вurability - Solid state disks have no moving parts-drop one onto concrete and it will probably be fine, but the intricate precision parts of a conventional hard drive are unlikely to fare so well. DonРІР‚в„ўt jeopardize your work by thinking you can boot off such a device for a daily working system- data loss is the likely result, sooner or later. In particular, such devices donРІР‚в„ўt necessarily do wear-leveling, so rapid РІР‚Сљburn outРІР‚Сњ of heavily used sectors is possible. Those devices do not have intelligence (controller), are far slower, and have far lower duty cycles than a quality SSD. SSD is not a flash card!Р”Вigital camera cards (SDHC, CompactFlash, etc) are solid state (memory chips), but they are not solid state drives. Hard drives also slow down as they fill up. Mechanical parts are slow (relatively speaking), and can wear out and in general have lower durability and in general are slower. Most SSDs also have higher reliability ratings than hard drives, and most draw less power as well.Р”Р„ hard drive uses spinning magnetic platters which are read by special РІР‚СљheadsРІР‚Сњ positioned over the spinning platters. There are no moving parts, and thus no seek time, near-zero latency, and far higher resistance to shock. A solid state drive (SSD) compared to a hard driveР”Р„ solid state drive (SSD) uses memory chips and an advanced controller to mimic the behavior of a conventional disk drive. There is a great deal of coverage of SSDs on this site, start here.

This page discusses solid state drives in general. Within a few years, solid state drives will dominate the storage market, displacing hard drives. Send Feedback Related: acclimatizing to altitude, Apple macOS, hard drive, laptop, memory, peak bagging, SSD, storage

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