You can’t open tech deals sites like Techbargains or Fatwallet these days without seeing notice of further price drops in Solid State Drive (aka SSD) prices.

Although SSDs have been around for a few years, they still haven’t caught on with average Chutiyas.

Even a gadget obsessed maniac like SI bought the first SSD only in December 2014 (a 250GB Samsung 840 EVO at Best Buy for $99.99).

Most PC buyers stick with the mechanical hard disk drives that came with their computers.

Back in the old days, I shared a PC with a 20MB HDD but these days 1TB HDDs are common even on home PCs and notebooks.

The big advantage of a HDD is that it’s cheaper than a SSD (you can get a 1TB Western Digital HDD for $45 but a 1TB SSD costs at least $375).

So for all you gaandus with tons of Allu Arjun, Deepika Padukone and Ulaga Madayan movies, a 1 TB HDD is way better than a 128GB SSD on a MacBook Air. 😉

On April 7, 2015, Amazon was selling a 6TB Western Digital SATA 3 HDD for $260. There are no 6TB SSDs but a 4TB SSD costs $29,000 (no typo here, sweetie!).

The fundamental difference between the two kinds of drives is that data is stored on SSDs on micro chips and on metal platters with a magnetic coating on a HDDs.

Of late, some computer vendors like Apple have replaced HDDs in their notebooks with low-capacity SSDs but the majority of Windows PCs still come with traditional HDDs.

So why is there so much hype about SSDs?

Simple, kiddo!

Because SSDs come with some unique features!

SSDs – Key Advantages

Let’s take a dekko at a few advantages that SSDs have over HDDs:

* Faster – A SSD is faster than a traditional mechanical Hard Disk Drive. For instance, the Samsung 850 EVO is said to have sequential read speed of 540MB/s and write speed of 520MB/s. These numbers are mumbo jumbo to you as they’re too to me. But in essence the SDDs are said to be at least 30% faster than a HDD.

* Quicker Boot – Computers with SSDs boot faster than those with HDDs. Average boot time for a computer with a SSD is said to be 10 to 13 seconds compared to 30-40 seconds with a regular harddrive. But on one of my Dell Optiplex 780 core 2 duo PCs with CentOS 7 and the Samsung SSD, the boot time was 36.18 seconds.

* File Opening Speed – Those who know more about the intricacies of SSDs than SI say that SSDs are up to 30% faster than HDD.

* More Durable – Since SSDs have no moving parts, they should last longer than the traditional mechanical Hard Disk Drives. SSDs are also less vulnerable to damage caused by shocks and drops.

* Portability – A big plus of a SSD is that it is smaller and lighter. You can easily remove a SSD and put in your pocket without noticing any extra weight. So if you’re worried about the NSA, FBI, RAW or NYPD stealing or tinkering with your drives, get an SSD because it’s portable.

* No Noise – Since there are no moving parts in a SSD, its functioning will be quieter compared to a HDD where you may hear occasional grinding and clicking.

* Lower Power Consumption – a SSD is said to average 2–3 watts resulting in a battery boost on notebooks compared to 6-7 watt for a HDD.

Should You Upgrade to an SSD?

For the average computer users, none of the advantages of a SSD are so overwhelming that requires them to abandon HDDs and plump for a SSD.

No!

Except for the portability part, I haven’t noticed that big of an advantage with my Samsung EVO SSD.

So the average Chutiya must resist the temptation and NOT rush out to buy a Solid State Drive.

Stick with the HDD you have.

You definitely get more bang for the buck with the HDD in terms of storage capacity.

Eventually, most PCs and notebooks will come with SSDs.

But that’s at least two years down the road.

  SSD