Battle of the hard drives: SSD vs. HDD by Kim Komando

I talk quite a bit about speeding up your computer. Whether it is streamlining startup, adding RAM or , tracking down resource hogs there is always something you can try.

Of course, at the end of the day these tricks are trying to compensate for one computer part: the hard drive. It is by far the slowest part of any modern computer.

While the rest of the computer is operating in nanoseconds and microseconds, a hard drive works in milliseconds, which is more than a thousand times slower. Your processor and RAM can spend precious time just waiting around for information to arrive.

That's why solid-state hard drives are gaining popularity. If you aren't familiar with the term, or haven't looked at them in a while, let me explain what an SSD is, how it can supercharge your computer and whether or not it's finally time to buy one.

Hard drive technology 101

A conventional hard drive, like the one you probably have in your computer right now, uses spinning magnetic disks called "platters" to store information. An arm moves across the disk, similar to an old turntable record player, to write and read information.

Even with multiple platters, it still takes a while for the hard drive to find information, and the data can only transfer as fast as the platters are spinning. That's why hard drive manufacturers often tell you the platter RPM. 5,400 RPM is used for many laptops and 7,200 RPM is typical for most desktops, but they can get up to 10,000 RPM and beyond for "high-speed" models. Or that used to be the case before solid-state came along.

A solid-state hard drive is a big block of flash memory, similar to a USB drive or memory card, with no moving parts to slow things down or break. The benefits of an SSD are that it's much faster (it works in microseconds rather than milliseconds), lighter, cooler, uses less electricity and is harder to damage than a conventional drive.

That's why solid-state storage is used for tablets, smartphones and high-end laptops like the MacBook and PC Ultrabooks. And it's working well for those gadgets, but there are still some concerns to address.

SSD drawbacks?

One worry about SSDs is that the flash memory does wear out over time as information is written and overwritten. However, a year-long test by The Tech Report found that newer SSDs can write way more information than the average user will need in a decade before they fail (some drives have written more than you normally would in a 1,000 years, although the SSD would probably fail for another reason before then).

Even better, once SSDs realize that they're getting near the end of their useful life, they go into read-only mode. While you can't use the drive anymore as a drive, you can usually still pull your information off of it. That's much more graceful than a conventional hard drive simply crashing.

That's not to say, though, that a manufacturing error, catastrophic power surge or natural disaster can't still kill an SSD and destroy your information. Or that your computer can't be stolen. That's why you still need a reliable off-site backup to keep your precious data safe no matter what.

I recommend my sponsor Carbonite. It's what I use to protect my important data, and it's never let me down. I love that it automatically backs up my files so I don't have to think about it. Plus, it has double encryption to keep hackers away, and I can restore my files to any computer without hassle.

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With the list of SSD benefits I just gave, you're probably wondering why everyone doesn't have one in their computer. The simple answer is that SSDs cost more and hold less than conventional drives. Plus, as with any new technology, there are some kinks to work out.

For example, the Samsung 840 EVO uses an alternative type of flash memory that's faster and cheaper than competing drives. However, it had an unforeseen problem that causes it to slow down over time. Samsung finally came up with a fix, but it left a lot of 840 owners' computers at cripplingly slow speeds for months until the fix came through.

Still, those problems are few and far between, and SSDs are continually dropping in price thanks to increased use in mobile gadgets. The new iPhone 6, for example, did away with the smallest 16 gigabyte storage size and introduced the 128 gigabyte model.

Should you buy an SSD?

So, are we finally to the point where an SSD makes sense for the average computer user? Well, it depends.

The prices are certainly becoming reasonable. You can get the Samsung 850 EVO 250GB drive for just $100, or the Kingston HyperX 3K 240GB for $110. True, you can still get a 3 terabyte conventional drive that holds 12 times information more for the same price, but take a second to think how much room you're really using on your current hard drive.

If you're an average computer user, I doubt you've come close to using 250GB. It might be time to trade that extra space for some extra speed. You can use a program like WinDirStat to see exactly how much you're using and what type of files are taking up the space.

For those who store their entire movie library on your computer, you can always pick up a large conventional hard drive to store the movies and use the smaller, faster SSD to run your operating system and programs.

There are also hybrid hard drives available. These combine a small SSD and a large HDD in a single package. While hybrids aren't as fast as a true SSD, they are less expensive and hold more. Of course, as SSD prices continue to drop and sizes increase, hybrids will eventually disappear.

The bottom line is if you're buying a new laptop or desktop and it has an SSD as a hard drive option, I would seriously consider choosing the SSD. You'll definitely enjoy the extra speed and it shouldn't cost an arm and a leg.

If you're thinking about upgrading your existing desktop, that's a little trickier. For a Windows Vista computer, you won't see a huge speed improvement for the investment. Vista doesn't have the code in place to really take advantage of an SSD, plus the computer is probably using slower hardware to begin with.

For a Windows 7 or Windows 8 computer, an SSD is definitely an option. However, you'll want to contact your computer's manufacturer to get a disk containing your computer's operating system first. Most newer computers ship with a recovery partition on the hard drive, which means you can't easily install a new hard drive.

Unless you feel you're up to it technically, I would hold off on an SSD upgrade and just get one in your next computer. That will probably be a Windows 10 computer, and it's definitely built to work well on SSDs. Click here to learn more about Windows 10 and what cool new features it will have.

HTHC Note: We have the tools to copy (clone) your old hard drive and the recovery partition on a SDD.  We do not install from scratch the operating system, application software and your personal files. Whatever is on your hard drive gets copied in it's entirety to the SSD.

Posted in: Android,Mac OS,Windows