Wednesday, February 2, 2011

SSD or Solid State Drive Vs Hard Drive or HDD Comparison


Solid State Drives are Technology of the Day.
New Technology = Expensive
Solid State drives with 64 GB capacity cost almost $180+
HDDs record data by magnetizing ferromagnetic material directionally, to represent either a 0 or a 1 binary digit. While SSDs use non-volatile flash memory
SSD or Solid State Drive

Hard Drive or HDD

Reliability of the drives
HDD drives use mechanical parts are there lifespan is limited. While SSD using flash memory can sustain almost 100,000 write cycles per write cell.

Read/Write Speeds
The typical access time for a Flash based SSD is about 35 – 100 micro-seconds
Whereas that of a rotating disk is around 5,000 – 10,000 micro-seconds. That makes a Flash-based SSD approximately 100 times faster than a rotating disk.
HDD data transfer rate at the rate of 80 megabytes per second typically.
SSD data transfer rate at the rate of 170 megabytes per second typically.
Although SSD are slow when to compared to small file writes, they have a constant read and write rate.

demonstrated a 1 TB flash SSD using a PCI Express x8 interface. It achieves a maximum write speed of 654MB/s and maximum read speed of 712MB/s

Audible noise
HDD have audible clicks and crunching sounds. While SDD drives are often quieter because they have no mechanical parts

Size 
Flash-based SSDs are manufactured in standard 2.5″ and 3.5″ form factors. 2.5″ SSDs are normally used in laptops or notebooks while the 3.5″ form factors are used in desktops

Vibration
SSDs are naturally more rugged than HDDs. SSD drive can sustain up to 1,500 Gs of shock before sustaining damage or a drop in performance. While HDD drives can withstand up to 350 Gs while operating and 800 Gs when turned off.

Reliability
SSD have the ability to deliver unnerving performance in extreme conditions making it to play a vital role in military operations,defense, aerospace or aviation applications. Military applications require, in most cases, an operating temperature range of -60°C to +95°C. Shock, vibration, and temperature ratings of HDDs cannot comply with military standards, only SSDs can.

Power Play 
SSDs have low power consumption over HDDs

Heat Dissipation
Along with the lower power consumption, there is also much lesser heat dissipation for systems using Flash-based SSDs as their data storage solution. This is due to the absence of heat generated from the rotating/movable media. This certainly proves to be the one of the main advantages of Flash-based SSDs relative to that of a traditional HDD. With less heat dissipation, it serves as the ideal data storage solution for mobile systems such as PDAs, notebooks, etc.

Cost Considerations
The cost of SSD are typically $3 per gigabyte, while traditional hard drives cost about 20 to 30cents per gigabyte

Conclusion
If you can go for an SSD because your pocket makes it easy. Then you should definitely chose for SSD otherwise wait at least 3 to 5 years when there prices drop.

No comments:

Post a Comment