These days SSDs are getting plenty of attention and a lot of people recommend using them instead of traditional spinning disks. But is it a good idea to make the change already? Or not just yet?

What is an SSD?

First of all I’d like to remind you what SSDs are. Basically, a solid-state drive (SSD) is a data storage device that uses solid-state memory to store data. It emulates a hard disk drive interface, thus easily replacing it in most applications. Most SSDs use NAND flash memory.

Reliability

Hard disk failures happen all the time. A lot of stories have been told about how data was lost and what agony it was to retrieve it. Why do HDDs fail? Because of wear and tear. HDDs have mechanical components that can easily break, just like a car.

A flash-based SSD doesn’t suffer from that. Having no mechanical parts makes SSDs immune to physical vibration, shock, and extreme temperatures. For example, nothing will happen to an SSD if you drop it. The ability to work in extreme conditions makes SSDs very attractive for military use.

However, they have their own problem. The NAND flash memory endurance cycles are still too low. That’s why data retention is pretty short.

Speed

Speed is the main advantage of solid-state drives. SSDs offer blazing-fast performance, being 100 times faster than HDDs. This incredible speed difference is due to a much shorter access time (less than a millisecond for an SSD compared to 17-18ms for an HDD). If you want a big performance gain – switch to an SSD.

Another advantage of SSDs is that they make computers blissfully quiet, since there are no spinning platters to make that typical grinding noise you hear when your hard disk retrieves data.

But then again, you need to keep in mind that NAND flash memory never gets better in performance over time – only worse.

Price and Size Matter

Price per GB and capacity are the two main disadvantages of solid-state drives.

SSDs are not that popular yet because they are really expensive. Most people are not prepared to pay extra $500-600 for a laptop just because it comes with a solid-state drive.

Another reason is size. The largest 2.5-inch SSD currently available is a 256GB one from Samsung. That’s not a lot, compared to traditional hard drives, since these days you can easily get a 500GB hard disk.

The Verdict

Solid-state drives are not going to replace hard drives yet, not until their price drops and they match HDDs in size. But if for you speed gain is crucial and spending more money is not a big issue, SSDs are a way to go.