What advantages would a SSD have over a HDD?

[wonderboy1953]

Besides durability what other advantages would a SSD have (in the same price range)? Are there any cons with a SSD?

 

[MrDeath]

Ssd

Solid state drives are much faster than hard drives. They have no mechanical parts so they wont mess up as quickly as hard drives. They use less power than hard drives. They can sustain more force or impact damage.
The cons are that they are expensive and are limited on the number of writes before it fails.
Other than that solid state drives are a lot better.

 

[Laquer Head]

Pros: Speed, Durability, Silent

Cons: Shorter Life Span, Price

 

[tremmor]

All mentioned above. If you make the move I suggest you use this guide
Do's and Dont's. Im using a Intel SSD 80 gig. Programs i use often are installed on this. The 2nd drive is everything else. the link tell's ya how to set up the bios etc. What to turn off in windows and what to turn off and you better not do. Example. Ya don't need to defrag a SSD. Its memory.
http://www.computerforum.com/192436-setup-manage-ssd.html

 

[wonderboy1953]

Gentlemen

Thank you for your responses. I have a few more questions:

1) "Solid state drives are much faster than hard drives." When you say they're much faster, can you explain this in detail, i.e. how much faster is the average SSD over a HDD?

2) "and are limited on the number of writes before it fails." What limits their writes? Will there be a radical change in the technology which will seriously boost their writing performance?

I want to comment on "Ya don't need to defrag a SSD. Its memory." Cool, another advantage.

 

[TrainTrackHack]

SSDs aren't actually faster all around, they just have essentially zero seek time (and hence faster random access) since they don't have any moving parts. It does make your system much more responsive and faster in general, as random accesses make up the bulk of your disc usage, but you will find that they are actually significantly slower than mechanical hard drives when it comes to sustained read/write performance (such as when dealing with large files).

As for how much faster, I haven't experienced myself but I hear a single (good-quality) SSD can easily cut Windows 7 boot time to under 20 seconds (from pressing the power button to a working desktop). Meaning a fully loaded install with all the programs one would use, not just a fresh installation to get a good benchmark score.

 

[linkin]

The main reasons SSD's are faster is the lack of moving parts, it's all electronic, hence to get access times of <0.1ms, where the HDD has to move the head and spin the platter around.

 

[diduknowthat]

The main benefit of SSD is better system responsiveness. Programs you install on the SSD will load almost instantaneously. I have MS Office, Skype, Chrome and such programs installed on my SSD and they open immediately. Photoshop takes a mere 3 seconds to load.

 

[Aastii]

Thank you for your responses. I have a few more questions:

1) "Solid state drives are much faster than hard drives." When you say they're much faster, can you explain this in detail, i.e. how much faster is the average SSD over a HDD?

2) "and are limited on the number of writes before it fails." What limits their writes? Will there be a radical change in the technology which will seriously boost their writing performance?

I want to comment on "Ya don't need to defrag a SSD. Its memory." Cool, another advantage.

1) Substantially. If you are moving large files (which you shouldn't do with an SSD), the difference won't be that great if you are uisng a decent hard drive, however for opening programs, load times in programs and games etc, you are talking near instantaneous, and overall system responsiveness will be much improved.

2) The life of the NAND memory chips is finite because of how they work. They have two states, essentially off or on (called an erase/program cycle), and it can only go to each a certain number of times before it no longer works. However, we aren't talking you drop $200 on a storage device that isn't going to work 6 months later, according.

Intel and several other manufacturers have set a target, that they claim their drives stick to, of a user being able to write on average 20GB of data every day for 5 years and the drive still work. Intel claim their drives will last 5 times that, so 100GB a day for 5 years, and still work.

5 years is more than the lifespan of a component. If you think in 5 years, the drive you bought for $200 will probably be worth only around $30, and for $200 you could get a much faster, much larger drive with a much longer life span and more efficient

 

[Benny Boy]

mechanical hard drives when it comes to sustained read/write performance (such as when dealing with large files).

Yep. A mainstream user should always accompany with a HDD. It's a balancing act.

1) Substantially. If you are moving large files (which you shouldn't do with an SSD), the difference won't be that great if you are uisng a decent hard drive, however for opening programs, load times in programs and games etc, you are talking near instantaneous, and overall system responsiveness will be much improved.

2) The life of the NAND memory chips is finite because of how they work. They have two states, essentially off or on (called an erase/program cycle), and it can only go to each a certain number of times before it no longer works. However, we aren't talking you drop $200 on a storage device that isn't going to work 6 months later, according.

Intel and several other manufacturers have set a target, that they claim their drives stick to, of a user being able to write on average 20GB of data every day for 5 years and the drive still work. Intel claim their drives will last 5 times that, so 100GB a day for 5 years, and still work.

To add for the TS:
HDD vs SSD specs could be looked at and see that SSD appears to be 2-3 times faster. But Substantially describes it better imo. It's like, a lot faster where it counts.
Including the OS and working within it (perhaps this was obvious, but just in case)
An MLC cell can hold 2 bits of data. An SLC cell holds 1. So while the MLC cell can have an erase cycle performed(as in delete), that cell may still contain a bit of data. Since SLC holds 1 bit, when that data is removed no other bits are present. SLC lasts longer, but are slower and cost more > more of a server type drive.
And,,altho the controller(that does all the writing and erasing)and cell have thier respective lifespans, at life end the controller will loose loose performance before the drive runs out of cells.

 

[SIMP]

I just installed my first SSD and I love it. Once the windows boot logo does away, my desktop is ready to use. I used to have to wait for everything to load up before getting started but now as soon as my desktop appears, it's go time.

Programs like itunes which have seemed a little "sluggish" in the past, now load instantly.

I may out of line here but I'd say an SSD compared to HDD is like DSL was to dial-up....kind of...maybe so...a little.....

 

[strollin]

...

2) The life of the NAND memory chips is finite because of how they work. They have two states, essentially off or on (called an erase/program cycle), and it can only go to each a certain number of times before it no longer works. However, we aren't talking you drop $200 on a storage device that isn't going to work 6 months later, according.

Intel and several other manufacturers have set a target, that they claim their drives stick to, of a user being able to write on average 20GB of data every day for 5 years and the drive still work. Intel claim their drives will last 5 times that, so 100GB a day for 5 years, and still work.

5 years is more than the lifespan of a component. If you think in 5 years, the drive you bought for $200 will probably be worth only around $30, and for $200 you could get a much faster, much larger drive with a much longer life span and more efficient

Lifespan of early SSDs wasn't as good because as files are deleted and new ones written, the same locations got written to repeatedly which caused those cells to reach their max write cycles fairly quickly. Newer SSD controllers use an algorithm called "wear leveling" that more evenly distributes where data is written in order to avoid excess wear to the same location.

The interesting thing about when a cell reaches it's max number of write cycles is that it then becomes read only which means that the data can still be read and no data loss occurs.

 

[BuddyLee81]

SSD = Cable modem, T1, T3 connection
HDD = 14.4k Modem

Just to give you an idea on how fast an SSD is compared to your average joe schmoe 5400 or 7200 rpm hard drive...