SSD vs HDD: What’s the Difference?

Are you trying to build or upgrade your Computer but don’t know which is the best storage device for  your System? Here we describe the major differences between SSDs and HDDs, and give you tips that will help you to make your buying decision easy and simple.

Hard Disk Drive (HDD)

The HDD (Hard Disk Drive) is an essential nonvolatile storage on a computer. It can store information when power is off. Hard drives are metal platters with a magnetic coating. This magnetic coating stores your data, whether it contains digital multimedia, documents, files and photos etc.

Solid State Drive (SSD)

In the traditional sense of term, SSDs (Solid State Drives) are not like HDDs as they have no moving parts involved. HDDs have a spinning disk with a read/write head on mechanical arm. On the other hand, SSDs have an array of semiconductor memory systematize as a disk drive, using ICs (Integrated Circuits) instead of magnetic or optical storage media.

SSDs & HDDs Comparison

If we talk about the job that SSDs and HDDs are providing, more or less it’s similar in both of them; i.e. System boot management, applications storage, and storage of personal files.

But they are pretty much different in terms of features and prices. We have listed down some of the reasons for choosing one storage type over the other. This comparison will let you understand which one to use according to the required usage!

Price Comparison

It’s no doubt that SSDs are usually expensive per GB price evaluation. For example: If you Buy 1TB Internal 2.5-inch Had Drive on the same capacity and form factor, it’ll cost you around $60 to $75 on an HDD, but on the other hand, an SSD will cost you about $130 to $150. This makes 7 cents per GB for HDD and 14 cents per GB for the SSD.

This gives an idea on price difference, HDDs are twice cheaper than SSDs. Hard Drives  are an older storage devices and a traditional technology, and they will stay inexpensive for future.

Capacity Difference

As explained above, SSD units exceed out at 1TB, but they are still quite expensive and rare to find. Usually, majority of the systems are found with 120GB to 500GB units as primary drives. These days, you rarely find 120GB HDD in a computer, as 250 or even 500GB is regarded a “base” system in 2015.

Multimedia users demand even more, as 1TB to 4TB drives in high-tech systems. It’s quite simple to understand that the more storage capacity, the more multimedia stuff you can store in your PC like videos, photos, music, games etc.

Speed Difference

As far as the speed is concerned, SSDs take advantage. An SSD-installed PC boots in seconds, even within a minute. While an HDD takes time to speed up to operating specs, and in normal operation, it also goes slower than SSD.

A computer or Mac equipped with SSD boots faster, launches applications faster, and gives better overall performance.

Fragmentation Edge

Since HDDs have rotary recording surfaces, they perform well with larger files that are located in connecting blocks. In this way, the drive’s head can start and stop its read in one regular motion. Large files go dispersed around the disk platter, when hard drives run to full up, and this is known as fragmentation. Hence, HDDs have read/write algorithms and can be fragmented. While, SSDs are incredibly faster and have no physical read head, so it doesn’t matter where the data is stored in its chips.

Durability Fact

Undoubtedly, SSDs are more durable as they have no moving parts. Your data stays safe even when your system is shaken up or your laptop is dropped down while operating. Since, HDDs are sensitive in this case, so, for a rough usage of the equipment, SSD is highly recommended.

Ease of Availability

Hard drives are known to be abundant in availability. Just checkout the product list from Seagate, Hitachi, Toshiba, Samsung, and Western Digital, HDD model numbers are greater than in availability than SSDs. According to a forecast, HDDs won’t be wiped out completely and will be used for PCS and Macs for the next few years more. Large number of choices available for HDDs for the same capacities from different manufacturers. Although SSD model lines are expanding massively, but HDDs still have an edge of being the major storage devices in computers.

Size Limitation

Due to HDDs dependency on spinning platters, there is a limit restriction for their size in manufacturing. Earlier, an initiative for 1.8-inch smaller-sized spinning hard drive was taken, but it just came out to be about 320GB in capacity. So, the smartphone and MP3 player manufacturers have decided to stay with flash memory as a primary storage device. Comparatively, SSDs don’t have size limitation, so they are in continues process to be shrink as technology advances.

Noise:

HDDs make noise when they are in use from the mechanical read arm moving back and forth and from the drive spinning. Since, SSDs are non-mechanical, they make no noise virtually.

Overall Evaluation

If we conclude it on overall evaluation for both technologies, HDDs take advantage on price, availability and capacity. SSDs are best at speed, noise, fragmentation, form factor and roughness. If you  don’t consider price and capacity issues, SSDs will be a best choice for you!

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