Both SSDs and hard drives do the same job: They boot your
system, and store your applications and personal files. But each type of
storage has its own unique feature set. How do they differ, and why would you
want to get one over the other?
Price: SSDs are
more expensive than hard drives in terms of KSH per gigabyte. A 1TB internal
2.5-inch hard drive costs about KSH 4,500, but as of this writing, an SSD of
512GB capacity starts at KSH 18,000. Since hard drives use older, more
established technology, the cost of manufacture is low and will thus continue
to be cheaper in the near future.
Maximum and Common
Capacity: Although SSD units top out at 4TB, those are still rare and
expensive. You're more likely to find 512GB as primary drives in systems. While
512GB is considered a "base" hard drive in 2016, pricing concerns can
push that down to 128GB for lower-priced SSD-based systems.
Speed: This is
where SSDs shine. An SSD-equipped PC will boot in less than a minute, and often
in seconds. A hard drive requires time to speed up to operating specs, and will
continue to be slower than an SSD during normal use. A PC or Mac with an SSD
boots faster, launches and runs apps faster, and transfers files faster.
Fragmentation:
Because of their rotary recording surfaces, hard drives work best with larger
files that are laid down in contiguous blocks. When hard drives start to fill
up, large files can become scattered around the disk platter, causing the drive
to suffer from what's called fragmentation. While read/write algorithms have
improved to the point that the effect is minimized, hard drives can still
become fragmented. SSDs can't, because they lack a physical read head. This
means that data can be stored anywhere. Thus, SSDs are inherently faster.
Durability: An
SSD has no moving parts, so it is more likely to keep your data safe in the
event that you drop your laptop bag or your system is shaken about by an
earthquake while it's operating. Most hard drives park their read/write heads
when the system is off, but they are flying over the drive platter at a
distance of a few nanometers when they are in operation. Besides, even parking
brakes have limits. If you're rough on your equipment, an SSD is recommended.
Availability:
Hard drives are more plentiful in budget and older systems, but SSDs are becoming
more prevalent in recently released laptops. That said, the product lists from
Western Digital, Toshiba, Seagate and Transcend are still skewed in favor of
hard drive models over SSDs. For PCs and Macs, internal hard drives won't be
going away completely, at least for the next couple of years. SSD model lines
are growing in number: Witness the number of thin laptops with 256 to 512GB
SSDs installed in place of hard drives.
Form Factors:
Because hard drives rely on spinning platters, there is a limit to how small
they can be manufactured. SSDs have no such limitation, so they can continue to
shrink as time goes on. SSDs are available in 2.5-inch laptop drive-sized
boxes, but that's only for convenience. As laptops become slimmer and tablets
take over as primary Web surfing platforms, you'll start to see the adoption of
SSDs skyrocket.
Noise: Even the
quietest hard drive will emit a bit of noise when it is in use from the drive
spinning or the read arm moving back and forth, particularly if it's in a system
that's been banged about or if it's been improperly installed in an all-metal
system. Faster hard drives will make more noise than slower ones. SSDs make
virtually no noise at all, since they're non-mechanical.
Overall: Hard
drives win on price, capacity, and availability. SSDs work best if speed,
ruggedness, form factor, noise, or fragmentation (technically part of speed)
are important factors to you.
If it weren't for the
price and capacity issues, SSDs would be the winner hands down.
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