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Christine - HP Expert

HDD (Hard Disk Drive) vs. SSD (Solid State Drive) Explained

by on ‎04-12-2012 10:03 AM

Hi everyone!


I'm really excited to be launching a new product here on QVC on Saturday, April 21 in the 10am ET Saturday Morning Q show. Without giving too much away, this is our first Ultrabook presentation on QVC. If you aren’t familiar with this new category, it’s the new thin and light series of notebooks designed for the on-the-go PC user. With this product weighing in at ONLY 3.3 lbs and boasting a battery life of up to 9 hours, this is the device you can truly take along to stay connected!


This will be my first time presenting a PC with a SSD (Solid State Drive) vs. a traditional HDD (Hard Disk Drive), and I wanted to provide some background info on these two technologies to ensure it’s easy to understand.


HDD


Since the 1960s, the majority of PCs (notebooks, Adios, towers) included a HDD: a permanent mass storage device that typically stores the operating system, applications, drivers, and personal files and documents such as pictures and videos.


Here is a picture of what a Hard Disk Drive looks like within your PC:



There are advantages to HDD:



  • HDD is fairly inexpensive (low cost per gigabyte).



  • It has a broad supply in a variety of capacities.


There are disadvantages to HDD:



  • Slower Speeds: Due to the physical disc and arm rotation, the time to find, retrieve, and store data is much longer than on a HDD. Also, transfer rates to and from HDDs are significantly longer than for SSD-based storage solutions.



  • High Power Consumption: The large amount of power consumption of HDDs significantly reduces overall notebook battery life.



  • Shock Susceptibility: Because of the extremely close spacing between the heads and the disc surface, HDDs are vulnerable to being damaged or destroyed in sudden movements or drops. Some PC manufacturers improve shock resistance by automatically detecting sudden moves and temporarily parking the read/write head in a secure position (i.e. the HP ProtectSmart Hard Drive Protection found in our DV Series PCs). This prevents them coming in contact with the disc, thus potentially preventing HDD damage or destruction that can lead to an irreversible loss of data and render the PC unusable.



  • Heat: HDD can get quite hot over an extended period of operating time. The faster the HDD, the more heat that's generated.



  • Audible Noise: Especially during start‐up and heavy application use that requires storing information on the HDD, the noise will be noticeable and sometimes distracting.


SSD


Like a HDD, a SDD is a permanent mass storage device that typically stores the operating system, applications, drivers, and personal files and documents such as pictures and videos. SSDs became popular as part of USB flash sticks, but have grown significantly in capacity over the last few years and have also dropped in cost. The key advantage of a SSD is that it contains NO moving parts like an HDD.


Here is what a SSD looks like within your PC:


 


A SSD also has its advantages and disadvantages. 


There are advantages to SSD:



  • Better Performance: Extremely fast access and read & write times due to no moving pieces. The access times with an SSD are typically 50–100X faster than on HDDs, resulting in applications launching in a snap. Also start-up and shut down times are much faster with SSDs than with HDDs.



  • Reliability: They’re able to withstand extreme shock, vibration, and temperate ranges.



  • Battery Life/Power Consumption: SSDs have a long battery life due to very low power consumption.



  • No Need For Defragmentation: Unlike on HDDs, there’s no need to perform disc defragmentation to improve performance. This can save the user many hours.



  • Silent: Since there are no moving parts on SSDs, they’re entirely silent.



  • Weight & Space: SSDs are small and lightweight, making them ideal for portable devices such as the Folio 13.


There are disadvantages to SSD:



  • The cost per GB is relatively high in comparison to HDD.



  • The high capacities aren’t available in SSD as in HDD, so consumers will rely more on Cloud storage or removable storage devices.


I hope this explanation helps everyone! Isn’t new technology exciting?


—Christine Kane

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