Why Is The Solid-state Drive A Similar Size Of A Typical Hard Drive?

How much faster is an SSD compared with HDD drives and is information technology worth the toll?

A solid land bulldoze or SSD can speed upwardly the performance of a computer significantly, often more than than what a faster processor (CPU) or RAM tin. A hard deejay bulldoze or HDD is cheaper and offers more storage (500 GB to one TB are common) while SSD disks are more than expensive and generally available in 64 GB to 256 GB configurations.

SSDs have several advantages over HDD drives.

Comparing chart

HDD versus SSD comparison chart
	HDD	SSD
	current rating is 3.59/5 1 2 iii 4 5 (418 ratings)	electric current rating is 4.22/five 1 two 3 iv 5 (541 ratings)
Stands for	Hard Deejay Bulldoze	Solid State Drive
Speed	HDD has higher latency, longer read/write times, and supports fewer IOPs (input output operations per second) compared to SSD.	SSD has lower latency, faster read/writes, and supports more IOPs (input output operations per second) compared to HDD.
Estrus, Electricity, Dissonance	Hard deejay drives utilise more electricity to rotate the platters, generating heat and noise.	Since no such rotation is needed in solid state drives, they utilize less power and exercise non generate heat or noise.
Defragmentation	The functioning of HDD drives worsens due to fragmentation; therefore, they need to be periodically defragmented.	SSD bulldoze operation is not impacted by fragmentation. So defragmentation is not necessary.
Components	HDD contains moving parts - a motor-driven spindle that holds ane or more than flat round disks (chosen platters) coated with a thin layer of magnetic material. Read-and-write heads are positioned on superlative of the disks; all this is encased in a metal cas	SSD has no moving parts; it is essentially a memory chip. Information technology is interconnected, integrated circuits (ICs) with an interface connector. There are iii bones components - controller, enshroud and capacitor.
Weight	HDDs are heavier than SSD drives.	SSD drives are lighter than HDD drives because they do not accept the rotating disks, spindle and motor.
Dealing with vibration	The moving parts of HDDs make them susceptible to crashes and impairment due to vibration.	SSD drives can withstand vibration up to 2000Hz, which is much more than than HDD.

Speed

HDD disks utilise spinning platters of magnetic drives and read/write heads for operation. And so get-go-up speed is slower for HDDs than SSDs because a spin-up for the disk is needed. Intel claims their SSD is eight times faster than an HDD, thereby offering faster boot up times.^[1]

The following video compares HDD and SSD speeds in the real world and it'due south no surprise that SSD storage comes out ahead in every test:

Benchmark statistics - small read/writes

HDDs: Small reads – 175 IOPs, Minor writes – 280 IOPs
Flash SSDs: Small-scale reads – 1075 IOPs (6x), Small writes – 21 IOPs (0.1x)
DRAM SSDs: Pocket-sized reads – 4091 IOPs (23x), Small writes – 4184 IOPs (14x)

IOPs stand for Input/Output Operations Per Second

Data Transfer in an HDD vs. SSD

In an HDD, data transfer is sequential. The physical read/write head "seeks" an appropriate signal in the hard drive to execute the performance. This seek fourth dimension can be pregnant. The transfer charge per unit can also exist influenced by file system fragmentation and the layout of the files. Finally, the mechanical nature of difficult disks likewise introduces sure performance limitations.

In an SSD, information transfer is not sequential; it is random access so it is faster. There is consistent read performance because the concrete location of information is irrelevant. SSDs have no read/write heads and thus no delays due to head motion (seeking).

Reliability

Dissimilar HDD drives, SSD disks do not have moving parts. And then SSD reliability is higher. Moving parts in an HDD increment the adventure of mechanical failure. The rapid motion of the platters and heads inside the hard disk drive make information technology susceptible to "head crash". Head crashes can be caused by electronic failure, a sudden ability failure, physical shock, wear and tear, corrosion, or poorly manufactured platters and heads. Another factor impacting reliability is the presence of magnets. HDDs use magnetic storage so are susceptible to harm or data corruption when in shut proximity with powerful magnets. SSDs are non at hazard for such magnetic distortion.

Wear-out

When flash beginning started gaining momentum for long-term storage, there were concerns about vesture-out, especially with some experts warning that because of the way SSDs piece of work, in that location was a limited number of write cycles they could achieve. Still, SSD manufacturers put a lot of effort in product architecture, bulldoze controllers and read/write algorithms and in practice, wear-out has been a nonissue for SSDs in nearly applied applications.^[ii]

Price

As of June 2015, SSDs are nonetheless more expensive per gigabyte than hard drives only prices for SSDs have fallen substantially in recent years. While external difficult drives are around $0.04 per gigabyte, a typical wink SSD is about $0.fifty per GB. This is down from near $2 per GB in early 2012.

In consequence, this ways you lot can buy a 1 TB external hard bulldoze (HDD) for $55 on Amazon (see external hard drive best sellers) while a 1 TB SSD costs well-nigh $475. (see best sellers list for internal SSDs and external SSDs).

Toll outlook

In an influential commodity for Network Computing in June 2015, storage consultant Jim O'Reilly wrote that prices for SSD storage are falling very fast and with 3D NAND engineering science, SSD will likely attain cost parity with HDD effectually the finish of 2016.

There are ii master reasons for falling SSD prices:

Increasing density: 3D NAND technology was a quantum that allowed a quantum jump in SSD capacity because information technology allows for packing 32 or 64 times the capacity per dice.
Process efficiency: Flash storage manufacturing has become more efficient and dice yields accept increased significantly.

A Dec 2015 commodity for Reckoner Earth projected that forty% of new laptops sold in 2017, 31% in 2016 and 25% of laptops in 2015, will utilise SSD rather than HDD drives. The article also reported that while HDD prices have not dropped also much, SSD prices accept consistently fallen month over calendar month and are nearing parity with HDD.

Price projections for HDD and SSD storage, by DRAMeXchange. Prices are in United states Dollars per gigabyte.

Storage capacity

Until recently, SSDs were besides expensive and but available in smaller sizes. 128 GB and 256 GB laptops are common when using SSD drives while laptops with HDD internal drives are typically 500 GB to one TB. Some vendors — including Apple — offer "fusion" drives that combine 1 SSD and 1 HDD drive that piece of work seamlessly together.

However, with 3D NAND, SSDs are likely to shut the chapters gap with HDD drives by the finish of 2016. In July 2015, Samsung announced it was releasing 2TB SSD drives that use SATA connectors.^[3] While HDD engineering science is likely to cap out at about 10 TB, in that location is no such restriction for flash storage. In fact, in August 2015, Samsung unveiled the world'due south largest hard drive — a 16TB SSD drive.

Defragmentation in HDDs

Due to the physical nature of HDDs and their magnetic platters that store data, IO operations (reading from or writing to the disk) work much faster when data is stored contiguously on the deejay. When a file'southward data is stored on dissimilar parts of the disk, IO speeds are reduced considering the deejay needs to spin for different regions of the deejay to come in contact with the read/write heads. Often at that place is non plenty face-to-face space available to store all the data in a file. This results in fragmentation of the HDD. Periodic defragmentation is needed to go on the device from slowing downwards in performance.

With SSD disks, in that location are no such physical restrictions for the read/write head. So the concrete location of the data on the disk does non matter every bit it does not impact operation. Therefore, defragmentation is non necessary for SSD.

Noise

HDD disks are audible because they spin. HDD drives in smaller grade factors (east.yard. 2.five inch) are quieter. SSD drives are integrated circuits with no moving parts and therefore practice non make noise when operating.

Components and Functioning

A typical HDD consists of a spindle that holds one or more flat circular disks (called platters) onto which the data is recorded. The platters are made from a non-magnetic cloth and are coated with a thin layer of magnetic textile. Read-and-write heads are positioned on top of the disks. The platters are spun at very high speeds with a motor. A typical hard drive has two electric motors, i to spin the disks and one to position the read/write caput associates. Data is written to a platter as it rotates past the read/write heads. The read-and-write head can notice and modify the magnetization of the material immediately under information technology.

Disassembled components of HDD (left) and SSD (right) drives.

In dissimilarity, SSDs employ microchips, and contain no moving parts. SSD components include a controller, which is an embedded processor that executes firmware-level software and is one of the nigh important factors of SSD performance; cache, where a directory of cake placement and wear leveling data are as well kept; and free energy storage - a capacitor or batteries - so that information in the enshroud can be flushed to the bulldoze when power is dropped. The primary storage component in an SSD has been DRAM volatile memory since they were first developed, but since 2009 it is more normally NAND flash memory. The operation of the SSD tin can scale with the number of parallel NAND flash chips used in the device. A single NAND chip is relatively irksome. When multiple NAND devices operate in parallel inside an SSD, the bandwidth scales, and the high latencies can be hidden, every bit long as enough outstanding operations are pending and the load is evenly distributed between devices.

References

Wikipedia: Hard disk bulldoze
Wikipedia: Solid-country drive
SSD Prices In A Complimentary Autumn - Network Computing
Samsung announces 2TB solid-state drives for desktops - Samsung blog
Samsung unveils 2.5-inch 16TB SSD: The globe'south largest hard drive - Ars Technica
Consumer SSDs and hard drive prices are nearing parity
HDD Shipments Down 20% in Q1 2016, Hit Multi-Year Low - AnandTech

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