Difference between modern SSD's, older spinning HDD's and flash memory

SuperFuzz

New Member
Hey folks, I was just wondering if someone could tell me the main difference between SSD's and spinning harddrives in older computers? Or are they the same thing? As for flash memory, is that something computers use or is that more things like memory sticks, cameras etc. Thanks.
 
Not sure if your terminology is correct but SSD don't have moving parts compared to the regular mechanical drives. SSD's are much faster then regular HDD's. Some laptops have a very small chip of flash memory.
 
Basically, a harddrive stores the info magnetically on a spinning disk called a platter.
SSD's uses flash storrage. Basically like a USB drive, but faster because of different chips and controllers.

Problem with harddrives is the moving parts. It takes time for the physical arm to reach it's location. The arm simple isn't fast enough, and that goes for the rotation too. It can't compete with SSD's.
And to add to that, programs like chrome might have to open over 100 files spread around many different places on the platter. And it can't multitask. It can't read 2 files at once.
So that makes the harddrive slow.
SSD's have no physical moving parts and it's able to multitask.


Flash memory is a wide term. Can both mean SSD's USB's, SD cards and so on.
 
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SSDs = No moving parts, memory is solid state. Think of it as a larger and faster memory card for your PC.
Hard Drives = Mechanical drives with high storage capacities, but significantly slower read/write speeds and much higher latency.
 
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