Sunday, January 30, 2011

Tutorial 1: Solid State Drives

What exactly is a solid state drive?  Well first off, it is solid inside and out.  It has no moving parts unlike the traditional magnetic hard drives found in most computers today.  These traditional magnetic hard drives use spinning disks to read/write data (accessing and saving files) limiting retrieval speeds and causing slower than desired functionality.  A solid state drive on the other hand is far superior than the magnetic drives in a sense that it has no moving parts to limit the data read/write speed.  They are more rugged in the sense of vibrations will not disturb their normal processes making them very efficient.   Solid state drives have been tested and proven to outperform magnetic drives in every aspect of computer performance. This advanced technology will pack your computer with better performance and greater efficiency,  unfortunately, it will lighten your wallet to a great degree.  Right now solid state drives cost about 10 times more per gigabyte verses the magnetic hard drives.  


The photo above shows a comparison of the internal components of the traditional hard disk drive and a solid state hard drive.  Take a minute to review the photo and notice how they differ from one another.