SSDs are on the lips of every hardware enthusiast, and even the less savvy users are well aware that an SSD delivers far superior performance than a traditional hard drive. However, it is not only better performance what an SSD has compared to a mechanical disk, so what other advantages does an SSD provide? Let’s see it next.
Many times we have said that replacing a mechanical disk with an SSD is the best upgrade that can be done to a PC to improve performance, since it greatly speeds up the loading and processing of almost any task. Today SSDs have already established themselves in the market as the preferred choice in almost any PC for this reason, but there are many other advantages it provides, so let’s see them.
SSD versus hard drive: all are advantages except price
The issue of performance is already more than known, because even a SATA 3 SSD of the cheapest provides between 3 and 5 times more performance than the best mechanical hard disk. And precisely that it is mechanical implies that these disks have moving parts (the turntables and the head with a moving arm), which necessarily generates noise, while an SSD is absolutely silent. There we have the first additional advantage: an SSD does not make noise .
Much is said about the durability of SSDs , something that was certainly a concern in the early days of this technology but that today is more than exceeded. Traditional hard drives, having moving parts, suffer wear and tear and today the failure rate of a hard drive is several integers above that of an SSD, so in reality an SSD has a lifespan greater than that of a hard drive, at least statistically and theoretically.
The third advantage that an SSD provides, and following the thread of the moving parts, is that it is much more resistant to shocks and violent movements. In ancient times, when everyone had mechanical disks in their PC, it was not uncommon for us to inadvertently kick the PC case if it was on the ground, causing the system to hang because the disk head hard had moved and read a sector that was not, causing the failure. With an SSD this will never happen, since it has no moving parts and its resistance to impacts is much higher.
Of course, another advantage that an SSD provides is energy consumption , which is much lower than that of a traditional hard drive. It is true that the consumption of both types of storage units is not going to suppose an exaggerated saving in the electrical bill, but if you have the PC on 24 × 7 and you have several units, in the end it is noticeable. On the other hand, this lower consumption also affects a lower operating temperature , although it is true that SSDs in M.2 format and with a PCIe interface do get hotter than mechanical drives.
The price-to-capacity ratio is hardly a disadvantage anymore
In these times, with SSDs already taking over almost the entire market share in modern PCs, the price-per-GB capacity ratio is still the biggest disadvantage over mechanical hard drives. This is still present in the most modern solid state drives, with ultra-fast and high-capacity interfaces, but it is no longer the case in SATA 3 drives, which have established themselves as the “entry level” in any PC.
Thus, a desktop PC hard drive such as a 4 TB WD Blue has a price of about 103 euros, that is, its price ratio per capacity is 0.0025 euros per GB. If we go to an entry-level 1 TB SATA 3 SSD, such as a Crucial BX500, it costs about 110 euros, with a ratio of 0.10 euros per GB, a quite remarkable difference but still, it is closing distances.
It is still, effectively, the biggest disadvantage since for less than what you buy a 1 TB SSD you can buy a 4 TB mechanical disk. Also, SSDs larger than 2TB are still quite prohibitively priced, even in entry-level models (let’s not say the high-end ones).
