HDD versus SSD?

fyzz08

fyzz08

New member
I don`t know if I`m wrong but I read somewhere that while you can keep a hdd for 20y without power and still have the data on it, on a ssd it might disappear.

I have a couple of ssd`s and at the moment I would only recommend to put you os on them and eventually some games. Storage of picture/video/docs I would keep on hdd`s.
 
Genesis

Genesis

Administrator
Staff member
@fyzz08

Looks as though PC Magazine may differ in opinion. It favours SSD for greater reliability:

HDD and SSD Explained
The traditional spinning hard drive (HDD) is the basic nonvolatile storage on a computer. That is, it doesn't "go away" like the data on the system memory when you turn the system off. Hard drives are essentially metal platters with a magnetic coating. That coating stores your data, whether that data consists of weather reports from the last century, a high-definition copy of the Star Wars trilogy, or your digital music collection. A read/write head on an arm accesses the data while the platters are spinning in a hard drive enclosure.
Click to expand...

An SSD does much the same job functionally (e.g., saving your data while the system is off, booting your system, etc.) as an HDD, but instead of a magnetic coating on top of platters, the data is stored on interconnected flash memory chips that retain the data even when there's no power present. The chips can either be permanently installed on the system's motherboard (like on some small laptops and ultrabooks), on a PCI/PCIe card (in some high-end workstations), or in a box that's sized, shaped, and wired to slot in for a laptop or desktop's hard drive (common on everything else). These flash memory chips differ from the flash memory in USB thumb drives in the type and speed of the memory. That's the subject of a totally separate technical treatise, but suffice it to say that the flash memory in SSDs is faster and more reliable than the flash memory in USB thumb drives. SSDs are consequently more expensive than USB thumb drives for the same capacities.
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Only drawback for SSDs is the price. The technology is recent, so that makes it pricey. Maybe in a few years like all technology, it may be much cheaper, and who knows we'll have yet another more improved technology to compete with it.
Source: http://me.pcmag.com/storage-devices/1009/feature/ssd-vs-hdd-whats-the-difference
 
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strokerace

Banned
Technology is not recent. Its been around for years. Although they are trying to say that the SSD and the flash drive are different, they are not.The SSD's are based on a USB drive. I believe what they are trying to explain is that the read and write speeds are faster then the USB drives. Are they more reliable then a USB drive, nope. Power spike and its toast, just like a USB drive. Also, they have a shorter life span then a HDD. You can only write to the sector on a SSD so many times before it becomes dead.
Now here is something that has not been mentioned. If an SSD fails, your data is still recoverable. All you have to do is remove the chip and install it in a chip reader. Similar to removing the platter in an HDD.

Basically the reason for the price being high, is supply and demand. The demand is high for them, so they will keep the price high.
 
Barnum4000

Barnum4000

Moderator
Genesis said:
Only drawback for SSDs is the price. The technology is recent, so that makes it pricey. Maybe in a few years like all technology, it may be much cheaper, and who knows we'll have yet another more improved technology to compete with it.
Source: http://me.pcmag.com/storage-devices/1009/feature/ssd-vs-hdd-whats-the-difference
Click to expand...

I agree that the SSD is the future unless magnetic tape or another new storage will compete with the SSD. It's just too expensive for my liking when the price drops I may consider buying a SSD instead of HDD. But I think the HDD will always have a place for our computers
 
Genesis

Genesis

Administrator
Staff member
Barnum4000 said:
But I think the HDD will always have a place for our computers
Click to expand...
True. I'm very conservative with my technology, so it's the technology I feel secure with.
 
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aandreyy96

New member
I am runing a Samsung 850 EVO 250 GB SSD and it's awesome. I can feel the difference in the speed of my operating sistem. Before this i was using a 1 TB 5400 rpm HDD, which now is my second drive.

If you want performance go for SSD, but only for your operating sistem and your important programs and files.
 
Genesis

Genesis

Administrator
Staff member
aandreyy96 said:
If you want performance go for SSD, but only for your operating sistem and your important programs and files.
Click to expand...
Thanks for this feedback, most useful! :drinks:
 
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fouadChk

Member

I think you nailed it in the last paragraph. Size and price are what makes HDD the storage of choice still today. For as long as those 2 issues are not fixed, I would never bother with an SSD. Unless I have some specific need to increase the performance of some I/O-intensive service.. and even in that case SSD will come as a last option.
 
amh

amh

Member
i have 60gb kingston ssd and around 2tb multiple hard drives. only use the ssd for os install purpose...however, some softwares such office 365....you have no choice where need to use the system drive.....nowadays..better get 240gb sdd. i think ssd got good life term ...just check the drive mtbf ..like mine 1 million hours!
 
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yngwie123reloaded

New member
I spent about a year at ' ssd , or the choice of one or the ' other depends on what you do with it. If you need to store large amounts of data better to the ' mechanical hard drive , if you often use your PC to transfer large files then take a ssd , also l ' ssd improves the speed when loading games, but does not improve the fps .
 
V

ValueError

New member
I bought SSD 120 GB and replaced an old HDD 750 GB in my laptop with it. Computer runs MUCH faster, and os boot takes 2 times less than before. I still use old HDD as an external drive.
 
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hurakura

New member
SSD for OS and applications only. Your system will be more responsive with SSD. It will boot faster and running an application will be almost instant.
For storage HDD is still better option because it have lot lower price per GB. For the price of a 120GB SSD you can buy 2TB HDD.
 
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kiavash

New member
One note that you need to keep in mind, is if you have only SSD and low amount of RAM, then the OS will use the SSD for virtual memory. While this is certainly faster than using HDD, but SSD has a limited number of read/write life cycle and it is not optimal to use them for memory swap files.

I would suggest to upgrade your RAM to +8GB (depending on your memory use) and then totally consider an SSD. Make the memory swap file same size as the RAM and if you are using Linux, follow these recommendations to extend the life/performance of your system.
 
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starkiller07012

New member
I have a 850 for OS, programs and some games. It is a noticable difference. I also noticed that it helps with micro stutter (not FPS drops) in some big open world games like GTA V or Just Cause 3.
 
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joknight

New member
Definitely an SSD for system drive (OS and applications), a 128Gb is generally big enough for this and not very expensive. Then a large mechanical drive for storage. I have been running SSDs as system disks in all my machines for past 6 years and would never look back. The biggest improvement I think I have ever seen was when I upgraded my i5 laptop with an SSD. I couldn't believe the difference. Well worth the extra $$ IMO
 
T

tfg

New member
So many people go straight into upgraidng RAM to get better performance from a computer when actually a SSD can in some circumstances give a better boost to performance than upgrading RAM. For the base OS and applications if you can afford to get one I highly recommend it.

It boosted the peformanced of my macbook pro, it really is like night and day!
 
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