SSD vs SSHD, Which Storage is Worth More?

In just a few years, solid state devices (SSDs) have practically replaced mechanical hard drives on the market, and even more so in the market for laptops where in all cases the storage is factory installed. However, SSHDs are emerging of late, promising the best of SSDs and HDDs. So which option is better? Is hybrid storage worth it?

SSDs are a type of Flash storage similar to USB pen drives, but much faster since they use NAND memory. On the other hand, SSHDs contain a normal hard disk inside but also NAND memory that serves as a huge cache buffer (usually 8 GB or more). Unlike traditional hard drives, the SSD and HDD components of an SSHD are handled in a single piece of hardware.

SSD vs SSHD

Both types of drives are available in 2.5 and 3.5-inch variants, although, as you may well know, SSDs can also be found in M.2 format, much smaller and with the possibility of linking it to the PCIe interface instead of SATA. , so they are much faster.

SSD vs SSHD, performance comparison

The effective read and write speed of a SATA 3 SSD is typically around 550-450MB / s typically. In the following test we can see a comparison between a Seagate SSD launched in 2013 versus one of the new 2 TB Firecuda SSHD recently launched. The test has been done using Passmark.

Rendimiento SSHD

As you can see, the SSD is on average much faster than the SSHD, and in fact the speed increase of this unit with respect to a mechanical hard disk is not too remarkable to say.

Performance in access times

One of the best advantages that an SSD has compared to a traditional hard drive is that, as it has no moving parts, you do not have to wait for the platters to rotate and for the read head to be in the correct position to access specific data. but they can go directly to them. This is what is called access time, and that of SSDs has been much shorter since their origins than that of hard drives, so we can say that they have a much higher performance in this regard. But what about SSHDs?

Well, it happens almost the same as with mechanical hard drives. Although they have a certain amount of NAND memory that they use as a cache, if the data needed is not in it at the time it is needed, it has to resort to its mechanical part, taking the same time as a traditional hard drive . Again, an SSD wins and by far, on the order of 10 times faster.

Price vs capacity

Currently, you can find 500 GB SATA 3 SSDs (480-512 GB depending on the memory technology you use) for less than 50 euros if you find a good deal, although the usual price is around 70 euros. For their part, the 1 TB capacity SSHD (the minimum in which they are offered) have a price of about 75 euros, while the 2 TB units are around 110 euros.

In other words, SSHDs have an advantage over SSDs, and that is their price per GB even when we talk about SATA 3 SSDs, which are currently the cheapest. The price per GB of a SATA 3 and 2.5 ″ SSD is approximately double that of an SSHD.

Life expectancy: SSD vs SSHD

As you well know, SSDs have a limited useful life since NAND chips are degraded with use (in terms of erasures and writes, the reads do not produce degradation). And, although with new technologies the life expectancy of SSDs is increasing and can last more than 20 years with “normal” use, this is not so pronounced in SSHDs.

SSHD

The life expectancy of SSDs is measured in TBW and varies greatly depending on the manufacturer and the technology used. Since SSHDs have relatively little capacity for NAND memory and NAND memory is used as a cache, its durability is approximately 10 times that of SSDs.

So what type of storage is best?

As we have shown you, each type of technology has its advantages and disadvantages; while an SSD has a much higher performance, an SSHD is considerably cheaper (it costs half in terms of price per GB) and its life expectancy is longer (around 10 times more), but still with the new technologies of SSDs, it is not that their life expectancy is going to be a concern for most users, since their life expectancy is generally higher than the time that a PC usually lasts.

Thus, and answering the question, we consider that an SSD is a better option, but if you are short of money and / or need a greater capacity, an SSHD is not a bad option today, as long as you take into consideration that you will not have the same performance.