Buying an SSD
SSDs get their name because they have no moving parts. HDDs have moving parts and have spinning disks inside of them. Due to this difference, SSDs are a lot faster than HDDs, boasting much higher read/write speeds and making operating systems/programs on them snappier.
That being said, there are a few points to consider before diving right in. Don’t go into it blindly. Stay educated so you can make the best decisions when purchasing your next SSD.
Storage Capacity
SSD prices have plummeted over the past few years. In 2010, the average price hovered around $3.00 per gigabyte, whereas in 2015 you can find SSDs for as low as $0.34 per gigabyte.
Relatively speaking, however, SSDs are still more expensive than traditional spinning hard drives.
How much can you go on an SSD without needing a separate storage drive depends on how much you’re willing to spend.
Manufacturer
When buying an SSD, you want to buy from a high-rated, trusted brand – think Samsung, Crucial or SanDisk.
Buying a random no-name SSD is just asking for trouble, especially if it’s at a suspiciously low price compared to similarly specced drives as its competitors. Don’t take those kinds of chances with your operating system and personal data.
Physical Specifications
Most modern SSDs come in a 2.5-inch form factor, which happens to be the standard size for laptop HDDs. Such a drive is unsuitable in desktop computers, which usually require a 3.5-inch form factor, but you can remedy that with an adapter like SSD 2.5 to 3.5 mounting kit.
Consumer-grade SSDs pretty much all have a Serial ATA (SATA) interface, although whether you should get a 3 Gbps SATA or 6 Gbps SATA will depend on whether your computer can handle those speeds. Nowadays 6 Gbps drives are more common, but 3Gbps are often cheaper if you can find them.
Performance
Read/write speed is one of the more technical aspects behind an SSD, but it’s also the metric by which their performance is measured. Essentially, this is the rate at which it reads and writes data. A high read speed means faster loading times for games and programs (as well as your operating system as a whole, leading to super-fast boot times), and a high write speed makes tasks like uncompressing files with 7Zip work much faster.
While all SSDs are faster than HDDs, they aren’t all operating at the same read/write speeds at all. Modern high-end SSDs operate in the range of 500 MB/s and higher, but cheaper (and older) solutions will naturally fall much shorter.
That being said, there are a few points to consider before diving right in. Don’t go into it blindly. Stay educated so you can make the best decisions when purchasing your next SSD.
Storage Capacity
SSD prices have plummeted over the past few years. In 2010, the average price hovered around $3.00 per gigabyte, whereas in 2015 you can find SSDs for as low as $0.34 per gigabyte.
Relatively speaking, however, SSDs are still more expensive than traditional spinning hard drives.
How much can you go on an SSD without needing a separate storage drive depends on how much you’re willing to spend.
Manufacturer
When buying an SSD, you want to buy from a high-rated, trusted brand – think Samsung, Crucial or SanDisk.
Buying a random no-name SSD is just asking for trouble, especially if it’s at a suspiciously low price compared to similarly specced drives as its competitors. Don’t take those kinds of chances with your operating system and personal data.
Physical Specifications
Most modern SSDs come in a 2.5-inch form factor, which happens to be the standard size for laptop HDDs. Such a drive is unsuitable in desktop computers, which usually require a 3.5-inch form factor, but you can remedy that with an adapter like SSD 2.5 to 3.5 mounting kit.
Consumer-grade SSDs pretty much all have a Serial ATA (SATA) interface, although whether you should get a 3 Gbps SATA or 6 Gbps SATA will depend on whether your computer can handle those speeds. Nowadays 6 Gbps drives are more common, but 3Gbps are often cheaper if you can find them.
Performance
Read/write speed is one of the more technical aspects behind an SSD, but it’s also the metric by which their performance is measured. Essentially, this is the rate at which it reads and writes data. A high read speed means faster loading times for games and programs (as well as your operating system as a whole, leading to super-fast boot times), and a high write speed makes tasks like uncompressing files with 7Zip work much faster.
While all SSDs are faster than HDDs, they aren’t all operating at the same read/write speeds at all. Modern high-end SSDs operate in the range of 500 MB/s and higher, but cheaper (and older) solutions will naturally fall much shorter.