What are ssd drives. SSD disk - what is it: new horizons of data storage or just another marketing

Good day, dear blog readers. From the very beginning of the advent of computers, we have seen how rapidly the volumes of hard drives.

About 10 years ago, no one with you could imagine having a 1 TB hard drive in their computer, and 5 years ago a 1 TB hard drive was a luxury and was very expensive.

Today, among hard drives, a capacity of 1 TB is the most optimal choice. You can fit anything on 1TB, there are also hard disks 1.5, 2 and even 3 TB.

In my opinion, today any HDD can cope with its main task - data storage. When working with any Windows operating system, quite often the computer begins to slow down due to increased load on the hard drive.

Therefore, all articles devoted to optimization and acceleration of Windows from the section « » , were aimed at accelerating and reducing the load on it.

What is an SSD drive

Many of you may have heard about solid state drive technology.SSD.Today I will try to reveal to you the known pros and cons of these drives in comparison withHDD.

What is an SSD drive and why is it better than a HDD?

SSD drivesconsist of a controller and memory chips, while the drive does not contain moving parts; this, by the way, is one of important advantages in front of the HDD. There are two typesSSDdrives areSSD driveusing flash memory andRAMmemory.

In a nutshell,SSDdrives usingRAMmemory are the fastest and most expensive storage devices in the world. The cost of one gigabyte of such a drive starts at $80 and can exceed $500.

Besides the price, the main differenceSSDRAMfrom flash is in volatile memory, similar to RAM (memory stores data only when the computer is turned on; if it is turned off, the memory is completely cleared).

SSD drivesCheaper, slower and non-volatile drives based on flash memory.

They are widely used in desktop computers, unlikeSSD RAMwhich are used only on super-powerful computers with backup batteries, in case there is a power outage.

Now let's talk about the main advantages and disadvantagesSSD flashfrom the ones we are used toHDD.

Benefits of SSD

No moving mechanical parts - meaning that over timeSSDwill not “crumble” likeHDD,since there is nothing to spill in it.

Read and write speed is faster - UnlikeHDD,who cannot reach their full potentialSATA II – SATA III (3 – 6 Gb/s).

SpeedSSDdisks are limited precisely by this interface. That is, if it weren’t for the recording speed limit of 6Gb/sonSATA III, SSDcould work even faster.

Compactness - SSDmore compact and usually come in accordance with the form factor 2.5. WhileHDDdesktop PCs, it's 3.5.

No noise - anyHDDwith increased load on the plates, it begins to show signs of life in the form of noise and crackling.SSDcan’t do that :)

Strength - SSDmore resistant to mechanical stress and have wide range operating temperatures, including very high ones, at whichHDDI just couldn't work.

Since there are so many advantages, then there must certainly be disadvantages of these extra ones. fast drives. Why else?SSDare still not on everyone’s computers, butHDDare they still selling successfully?

Flaws

Overwriting - This is the biggest drawbackSSD.DrivesSSDhave a limited number of rewrites and usually can be rewritten no more than 10,000 thousand times. WhereinHDD(if my memory serves me right :)) successfully overwritten about a million times.

I have never heard that this problem is quite critical for usersSSD.In addition, most of them are familiar with this drawback, so they use the linkSSD + HDD.

Mainly used for rewritingHDD,ASSDused to speed up loading and workWindowsand all programs installed on the drive.

Compatibility - IN this moment onlyWindows 7knows how to work correctly withSSDdrives.

All previous operating systems load it with unnecessary page file technologies,Ready Boostetc. Which significantly reduce the service life, so purchasingSSDuse it exclusivelyWindows 7.

Price - Price forSSDdrives are significantly higher than conventional onesHDD.At the same time, the cost itselfSSDformed depending on the number of gigabytes (1-1.5$ for 1 GB).

Unlike the costHDD,the cost for which is formed based on the cost and number of plates. Probably because of this shortcomingSSDdrives are still not as popular asHDD,but every year prices for1 GBSSDdrive falls, and along with it, the price ofHDD.

Conclusion

SSDAn extremely useful, cool and expensive thing, therefore it requires appropriate attention. My usage patternSSDlike this.

Let's take itSSDbased on your needs - personally, 64 GB for me (that’s 60-70$ on average) forWindowsand there are enough programs. I'll bet with himHDD1 TB, which I use as storage for frequent rewriting of information. I install all this onWindows 7 (O.S. herselfSSD).

As a result, everything flies very quickly and I’m not afraid that mySSDwill soon fail, since some important data is stored only onHDD.

For those who still doubt the need to purchaseSSD,) and criteria. Under no circumstances should these methods be used onSSD,since this not only will not increase his productivity, but may also harm him.

In principle, that’s all, I hope that I was able to reveal the topic for youSSDdrives. In any case, if you have questions, ask in the comments, I’m always happy to help :)

Hard drives vs SSDs

The choice is obvious. Computer enthusiasts who have already tried SSD drives have felt the difference and do not want to go back to using a mechanical drive as a system drive. Cons of SSDs- significantly more high price, small capacity - as technology develops, they gradually disappear.

The advantages of flash memory drives cannot be ignored: low access time, high data transfer rates, excellent I/O performance. We also note mechanical reliability, low energy consumption and silent operation.

At the moment, there are so many manufacturers offering SSD drives that it's not so easy to separate the wheat from the chaff. If you go straight to the test charts page, you can see how SSDs outperform HDDs. Even if you don’t look for the fastest solid-state drive, but take the performance of the most inexpensive model as a starting point, even such a drive will be many times faster than any hard drive!

Pros and cons of SSDs

It's difficult to judge the benefits of an SSD based on benchmarks that are meant to be compared. different drives among themselves, regarding other upgrade methods (new processor, graphics card).

As a result, average users looking to build a modern, productive PC might be advised to buy a small SSD drive and store most of their files on the hard drive, spending the bulk of their money on upgrading other PC components.

If you ask several ordinary users what kind of computer they would like to have, the answers will most likely be similar. Sandy Bridge architecture processor, at least 4 GB of RAM, good graphics card. The “default” set includes a hard drive, but SSD drives are usually out of the question. It is not right.

It would be appropriate to sacrifice a couple of hundred gigahertz clock frequency processor, supplementing the hard drive with a system SSD drive with a capacity of about 60 GB. This way you can get almost all the benefits of SSD technology without going broke on purchase. solid state drive large volume.

A superficial view is not always correct

Our opinions are usually based on real, comparable data. A 2 TB drive with a spindle speed of 7200 rpm looks, without a doubt, more attractive than old model 120 GB and 5400 rpm. If earlier the throughput SATA interface was 300 MB/s, now it has reached 600 MB/s. As we can see, evolution is obvious, but for many such numbers mean more than real results.

In this case, we have two problems at once. First, too few users know that using a solid-state drive can actually significantly speed up applications. The second problem is the small volume and high price SSD.

But it’s worth repeating again: any modern SSD, regardless of model, is an order of magnitude faster than any hard drive. Let's illustrate this fact, comparing a simple SSD with one of the most powerful drives on magnetic plates.

Samsung 470 Series vs. Seagate Barracuda XT

HDD: Seagate Barracuda XT, 3 TB

We chose a hi-end hard drive, which combines high performance for a HDD and large capacity. The Seagate drive is quite capable of performing in this HDD comparison like a class. This is a modern hard drive with a capacity of 3 TB - not the maximum today, but this volume is enough for almost any PC.

Spindle rotation speed – 7200 rpm. Like a storage device latest generation, Seagate Barracuda XT combines high sequential data read and write speeds, decent response time for a hard drive, and relatively high I/O performance. The drive is equipped with the latest SATA 6 Gb/s interface. However, given the real peak performance of 160 MB/s, this is clearly just a publicity stunt: it was enough to limit previous version SATA interface.

Seagate XT belongs to the upper price bracket (about $250). It will appeal to those users who prefer modern hardware, but are still cautiously looking towards SSDs. The drive is covered by Seagate's five-year warranty.

As an alternative, there are Hitachi Deskstar 7K2000 and 7K3000 hard drives (both 3 TB), Western Digital Black Edition 2 TB. You can find out more about modern “heavyweights” from the world of HDD in the material on our website "Four HDDs with a capacity of 3 TB" .

SSD: Samsung 470 Series, 128 GB

Representatives of this Samsung line have previously been repeatedly used by us as references in various tests, but today these drives are no longer the newest and best (see our material Samsung SSD 830 series, dedicated to the new line of Korean solid-state drives).

The 470 series is represented by disks with a capacity of 64, 128 and 256 GB, equipped with the obsolete SATA 3 Gb/s interface. If you compare a Samsung 470 series drive with latest models Crucial, Intel and numerous drives based on the second generation SandForce controller, then it does not look so modern.

Ultimately, the Samsung 470 series SSD provides data transfer speeds of up to 260 MB/s. Some of the latest SSD models with a SATA 6 Gb/s interface are capable of exceeding 500 MB/s in serial data transfer operations. The difference is significant. Our position in this case is that even previous generation solid state drives are significantly ahead of any hard drives, including the most modern models.

Samsung, Intel and Toshiba design and manufacture SSD components in-house (the only exception is Intel series SSD 510, which uses a Marvell controller). All three vendors have released enough firmware to fix firmware issues, so none of them are perfect. The point is, even if the Samsung 470-series drive isn't exactly what computer enthusiasts dream of, this drive The characteristics are quite consistent with a standard “middle class” SSD, and in this sense its choice is justified taking into account the task this review. If you are interested in comparing the performance of more recent SSD models, you can familiarize yourself with the results of the corresponding tests on the pages of our website.

Comparison of characteristics

Performance

As you can see in the video at the end of this article, an SSD can significantly speed up modern computer- whether we are talking about the speed of launching applications, loading levels in games or importing a large amount of data. Why is this happening?

First of all, the success of SSDs is associated with significantly higher data transfer rates. 2.5" hard drives reach 60-100 MB/s, 3.5" - 100-150 MB/s. Moreover, these indicators reflect the performance of HDDs in the most favorable conditions for them. The characteristics that vendors like to cite in specifications for this or that HDD model relate to sequential data read/write operations - here the lag of hard drives is least apparent. When the hard disk head moves to another disk partition/sector, the speed of operations decreases rapidly.

Disk usage modes in which I/O performance comes to the fore are not favorable for HDDs. An example is Windows booting, which involves reading huge amount small blocks of data. Here, when comparing a hard drive with an SSD, the picture is even sadder.

The data transfer speed in such modes drops to several MB/s. This applies to even the newest and most productive HDD models. Thus, hard drives do a good job of sequentially copying large files, but their use as a system drive is not optimal.

SSD uses flash memory to store data. Such drives consist of many memory cells that are used in parallel to each other and interact with the controller through several data channels. Such an architecture is capable of providing sequential read speeds from a couple of hundred MB/s to record values ​​of more than 550 MB/s. However, as we have already noted, hard drives also perform well in serial data transfer.

The critical mode for SSD is data writing operations, since only blocks of data can be written certain size. If you need to write only a few bits to the disk, a whole series of operations will be required - reading, erasing and finally rewriting one or two blocks.

Thus, it is not uncommon for hundreds of MB/s to turn into just a few dozen in practice. But while we are talking about blocks of about 4 KB in size, which are used by modern file systems, SSDs still remain 10-20 times faster HDD, providing performance at the level of tens of MB/s, while in the case of hard drives it drops to KB/s due to delays in head positioning. IN real work such a difference is not just noticeable, but striking.

Energy consumption and heating

SSDs consume, at most, a few watts. Hard drives can use 10 watts per hour or more if they are actively copying files. Modern SSDs do not heat up at all. Hard drives, on the other hand, often require cooling. Normal air circulation inside your computer case will most likely be enough, but proper cooling is a question disk system Still worth taking into account when assembling a PC yourself.

Design features and reliability

SSDs have no moving parts, which makes them very reliable. Theoretically, it's possible that you expose the solid-state drive to extremely high vibration or shock, so that the solder joints of the chips fail. In practice, this situation is unlikely.

Exactly the same tiny chance of breaking a solder exists with hard drives, but the real danger lies in the presence of moving elements - magnetic plates that rotate at high speed, and read/write heads. The operating principle of a modern HDD is reminiscent of an old-fashioned gramophone.

Mechanical parts have a certain resource and, in general, the reliability of the hard drive is lower. Any strong shock can turn a working hard drive into a piece of useless hardware. Modern HDDs have a certain “margin of safety” in relation to shock loads (which is especially true for 2.5” drives for laptops), but from the point of view of mechanical reliability they are still significantly inferior to SSDs.

Whether an SSD drive will survive a hard drive is impossible to say with certainty. It is known that HDDs are more prone to breakdowns, since their design combines electronics and mechanical elements. On the other hand, SSDs are more sensitive to firmware and we know of cases where, due to a firmware failure, a solid-state drive became unusable. The potential reliability issues for SSDs and HDDs are different, but exist in both cases. Read the comparison question in detail SSD reliability and magnetic platter drives you can read in the article "Which is more reliable: SSD or HDD?" .

Test bench configuration

The results of these tests are indicative of most SSD and hard drive models. The tested components were selected to obtain the best comparison for both configuration options. The drives are tested on very similar systems. The purpose of this review is to evaluate the benefits of using SSDs as system disk. We are not trying to prove that solid state drives have advantages in all aspects (moreover, we do not recommend using them for data storage).

Test results

Sequential Read/Write

CrystalDiskMark and Iometer clearly show significantly higher data transfer speeds compared to a hard drive high-end class. If you regularly read reviews, this fact is unlikely to be news to you.

Random Read/Write

The following results are very indicative in terms of operating room load Windows systems. When it comes to the real difference in everyday use, the SSD's separation from the hard drive may not be that significant, but in the synthetic test the difference is striking.

According to CrystalDiskMark, the hard drive works with 4 KB blocks in random read mode at a speed of 1.6 MB/s, write speed - 0.7 MB/s. Similar indicators for SSDs are an order of magnitude higher: 19.7 MB/s for write operations, 70.6 MB/s for read operations.

With increasing queue depth SSD performance increases even more, which is explained by more full use its multi-channel architecture: 129.4 MB/s for write operations and 70.5 for read operations. For HDDs, we also see a threefold increase in random write speed (up to 2.1 MB/s) thanks to NCQ support. However, the lag behind the SSD increases even further.

In case of blocks bigger size(V this test- 512 KB) hard drive can provide much better speed than we just saw. However, SSD retains its leadership here too. A modern solid-state drive with a 6 Gb/s interface would provide a more serious lead over the HDD.

The balance of power is obvious: in the random search test using 4 KB blocks, the HDD provided a result of about 700 KB/s, the SSD - 18.4 MB/s.

At a large queue depth (64 commands), the SSD outperforms the hard drive in the random search test by 40-50 times.

In the Iometer read performance test, the Samsung 470 128GB achieves 28,000 IOPS performance. The hard drive shows a result of 102 operations per second.

When writing, the SSD operates on blocks of data: writing even just a few bytes requires full cycle rewriting the entire block. Therefore, in write operations, the SSD separation is not so glaring, but we are still talking about a difference of an order of magnitude. Iometer shows a result of 1343.5 I/O operations for SSD and 132.5 for HDD.

I/O performance and access time

The Database boot script paints a clear picture: SSD is 12 times faster than HDD.

In the Web Server scenario, the SSD's superiority is even more significant, since read operations account for the bulk of the workload in this test.

In the workstation performance test, the balance of power does not change.

Access time

Unlike a hard drive, access time on an SSD is hardly measurable.

PCMark 7

Futuremark PCMark 7 simulates a typical PC experience. With rare exceptions, an SSD is 2-4 times faster than a hard drive. Note that in these tests the overall performance system, taking into account the influence of the CPU and video card. Thus, here we see a picture close to that which occurs during everyday use of a PC.

Exceptions include video processing in Windows Movie Maker, as well as the Windows Media Center boot script. In these SSD tests and hard drive provide similar results.

Energy consumption

The smallest difference between an SSD and a hard drive in terms of energy consumption is observed in the streaming write stress test. But even in this test, one hard drive consumes about the same amount of power as three SSDs.

Energy efficiency: performance per watt

In applications for working with databases Samsung data The 470 is 476 times faster than a Seagate hard drive (based on IOPS per watt).

In the streaming recording efficiency test, the solid-state drive outperformed the hard drive by 7 times.

Here it is necessary to briefly highlight the issue of measuring “capacity per watt”, since in this indicator SSDs are inferior to hard drives. To provide volume disk space, corresponding to the Seagate Barracuda XT 3 TB, you will need to assemble an array of one and a half dozen SSDs. IN in this context Discussing “capacity per watt” can only be done in theory. If you need a lot of storage space, HDDs currently have no alternative.

SYSmark 2012

The benchmark developed by BARCo is not often used in tests. The fact is that some companies, including AMD and nVidia, do not trust this test package, which is explained by the specific composition of the package: it focuses on boot scenarios that have little to do with everyday use PC. A significant percentage of the overall performance rating is allocated to OCR or archiving operations. It is worth noting that AMD indicates the presence of certain optimizations for Intel architecture in SYSMark.

Please note that in tests from the SYSMark package, the SSD is very slightly ahead of the hard drive. We can say that the results are the same. The reason is that in this case it is not possible to isolate the impact of other computer subsystems on the final result.

Windows boot speed

A computer with a system SSD drive also turns off faster - in five seconds instead of eight in the case of an HDD.

Launching applications

We use a script that opens four applications at the same time. As is the case with loading the OS, the speed advantage for launching applications on a system with an SSD drive is quite significant. You can see how this looks in practice in the video.

Running applications on SSD and hard drive

So, we used a script that opens several applications at the same time and captures the difference in the form of a short video. The script runs immediately after Windows boots, after which it waits 30 seconds for all processes to complete. The script launches Internet Explorer 9 (offline version of the THG site), Microsoft Outlook (the same set of user folders as in SYSmark 2012), a “heavy” PowerPoint presentation and a large image in Adobe Photoshop.

We missed this test four times in a row. File caching slightly reduces the loading time for the fourth “run”, but this can only be noticed in relation to the HDD. Let's watch the video:

Our test simulates a scenario where you turn on your computer and open several applications at once - for example, office program, web browser, messenger, image editor. As long as the system has a sufficient amount of RAM (that is, at least 4 GB at the moment), CPU performance is in second place after the disk subsystem. In other words, plus or minus 500 MHz of the processor frequency is not so significant, but replacing a hard drive with an SSD, on the contrary, significantly affects the result.

Here the question arises - is the choice of a specific SSD model important? In our opinion, this issue is not so fundamental. Even if you choose the latest drive with the SandForce SF-2200 controller, which when reading sequentially crosses the line of 500 MB/s, then the difference compared to not the most new model The SSD we used in this test won't be too noticeable. If you try to use an SSD as a system drive for the first time, then you definitely won’t want to go back to hard drives.

Any modern SSD improves system responsiveness

For those computer enthusiasts who have not yet tried using an SSD, we can safely recommend this upgrade option. Undoubtedly, the game is worth the candle. While not every benchmark reflects the benefits of using an SSD as system storage (in particular, we don't see a significant gap in SYSMark), the real difference in performance is noticeable.

We compared one of the largest, fastest and most expensive hard drives on the market - the Seagate Barracuda XT - with a modest, not the newest solid state Samsung drive 470. Of course, you can opt for a more “advanced” model, but even if you choose a relatively budget model you can get all the benefits of an SSD.

At the same time, we are not at all trying to retire hard drives. When it comes to storing files, this type there is no alternative to storage. SSD should be used for installation operating system, place it on it executable files programs, application caches.

For most cases, the ideal modern PC configuration includes system SSD drive and a large hard drive on which movies, music, images, and documents are stored. Systems without SSD are classified as budget options configurations, and computers with only a solid-state drive are almost never found in nature.

In recent years, SSD drives have become increasingly accessible and cheaper. However, for now they still remain more expensive than traditional hard ones. HDDs. So, what is an SSD, what are the advantages of using it, how will working with an SSD differ from an HDD?

What is a solid state hard drive?

In general, solid state hard drive technology is quite old. SSDs are on the market in various forms for several decades now. The earliest of them were based on RAM memory and were used only in the most expensive corporate and super-computers. In the 90s, SSDs based on flash memory appeared, but their price did not allow them to enter the consumer market, so these drives were familiar mainly to computer specialists in the United States. During the 2000s, the price of flash memory continued to fall, and by the end of the decade, SSDs began to appear in mainstream personal computers.

Intel Solid State Drive

What exactly is an SSD? First about what it is regular hard disk. An HDD is, simply put, a set of metal disks coated with a ferromagnet that rotate on a spindle. Information can be written to the magnetized surface of these disks using a small mechanical head. Data is stored by changing the polarity of the magnetic elements on the disks. It's actually a little more complicated than that, but this should be enough to understand that writing and reading to hard drives is not very different from playing records. When you need to write something to the HDD, the disks rotate, the head moves, looking for the desired location, and the data is written or read.

SSDs, on the other hand, have no moving parts. Thus, they are more similar to the well-known flash drives than to ordinary hard drives or record players. Most of SSD drives use NAND memory for storage, a type of non-volatile memory that does not require electricity to store data (unlike, for example, RAM on your computer). NAND memory, among other things, provides a significant increase in speed compared to mechanical hard drives, if only because it does not require time to move the head and rotate the disk.

Comparison of SSDs and regular hard drives

So, now that we know a little about what SSDs are, it would be nice to know why they are better or worse than regular hard drives. Here are a few key differences.

Spindle spin-up time: this characteristic exists for hard drives - for example, when you wake your computer from sleep, you may hear a clicking and spinning sound that lasts a second or two. SSDs have no spin-up time.

Data access time and latency: in this regard, the speed of SSDs differs from conventional hard drives by about 100 times, not in favor of the latter. Due to the fact that the mechanical search stage is skipped the right places on the disk and reading them, accessing data on the SSD is almost instantaneous.

Noise: SSDs do not make any sound. You probably know how noisy a regular hard drive can be.

Reliability: failure of the overwhelming majority of hard drives is a consequence of mechanical damage. At some point, after several thousand hours of operation, the mechanical parts of the hard drive simply wear out. At the same time, if we talk about lifetime, hard drives win, and there are no restrictions on the number of rewrite cycles.

In turn, solid-state drives have a limited number of write cycles. Most critics of SSDs most often note this factor. In reality, during normal computer use by the average user, reaching these limits will not be easy. There are SSD hard drives on sale with a warranty period of 3 and 5 years, which they usually outlive, and a sudden SSD failure is the exception rather than the rule, it just makes more noise for some reason. For example, 30-40 times more often people come to our workshop with damaged HDDs rather than SSDs. Moreover, if the failure of a hard drive is sudden and means that it’s time to look for someone who will get data from it, then with an SSD this happens a little differently and you will know in advance that it will soon need to be replaced - that’s exactly what it is “aging” rather than suddenly dying, some blocks become read-only, and the system warns you about the state of the SSD.

Energy consumption: SSDs consume 40-60% less energy than conventional HDDs. This allows, for example, to significantly increase the period battery life laptop from battery using SSD.

Price: SSDs are more expensive than regular hard drives per gigabyte. However, they have become much cheaper than 3-4 years ago and are already quite accessible. average price SSD drives fluctuate around $1 per gigabyte (August 2013).

Working with an SSD

As a user, the only difference you will notice when working at a computer, using the operating system, running programs is a significant increase in speed. However, when it comes to extending the life of your SSD, you will have to follow a few important rules.

Don't defragmentSSD. Defragmentation is completely useless for a solid-state drive and reduces its operating time. Defragmentation is a way to physically move fragments of files located in different parts hard drive, which reduces the time required for mechanical actions to search for them. This is irrelevant in solid-state drives, since they have no moving parts, and the time to search for information on them tends to zero. By default, in Windows 7, defragmentation for SSDs is disabled.

Disable indexing services. If your operating system uses any file indexing service for faster file retrieval (Windows does), disable it. The speed of reading and searching for information is sufficient to do without an index file.

Your operating system must supportTRIM. The TRIM command allows the operating system to communicate with your SSD and tell it which blocks are no longer in use and can be cleared. Without the support of this command, the performance of your SSD will quickly decrease. TRIM is currently supported on Windows 7, Windows 8, Mac OS X 10.6.6 and higher, and Linux with kernel 2.6.33 and higher. Windows XP does not support TRIM, although there are ways to implement it. In any case, it is better to use a modern operating system with an SSD.

No need to fill outFully SSD. Read the specifications of your SSD. Most manufacturers recommend leaving 10-20% of its capacity free. This free place should be left to use utility algorithms that extend the life of the SSD by distributing data into NAND memory for uniform wear and higher performance.

Store data on a separate hard drive. Despite the price reduction of SSDs, there is no point in storing media files and other data on an SSD. It is better to store things like movies, music or pictures on a separate hard drive; these files do not require high access speeds, and HDD is still cheaper. This will extend the life of the SSD.

Install more RAMRAM. To date RAM memory very cheap. The more RAM installed on your computer, the less frequently the operating system will access the SSD for the page file. This significantly extends the life of the SSD.

Do you need an SSD drive?

You decide. If most of the points listed below suit you and you are ready to shell out several thousand rubles, then take the money to the store:

• You want your computer to turn on in seconds. When using an SSD, the time from pressing the power button to opening the browser window is minimal, even if there are third-party programs in startup.
• You want games and programs to launch faster. With an SSD, when you launch Photoshop, you don’t have time to see its authors on the splash screen, and the loading speed of cards in large-scale games increases by 10 times or more.
• You want a quieter, less power-hungry computer.
• You are willing to pay more per megabyte, but get faster speeds. Despite the reduction in the price of SSDs, they are still many times more expensive than conventional hard drives per gigabyte.

If most of the above sounds like you, then go for the SSD!

Today, most user computers are equipped with HDD hard drives. This is a popular type that has its advantages, but is gradually being forced out of the market by SSD drives. Almost any modern laptop or a desktop computer is sold with such storage inside, but most buyers do not quite understand what an SSD drive is. Let's figure this out and determine what this hard drive is, what pros and cons it has over classic and already obsolete HDD drives.

What is SSD?

In simple terms, this is computer device memory, which consists of a microcontroller and microcircuits. This abbreviation stands for Solid State Drive (or Solid State Disc), which translated from English means “solid-state disk”.

Please note that this is a non-mechanical device. Unlike standard HDD drives, SSD drives have no moving mechanical parts: spindle, read head. Therefore, when this device operates, nothing moves inside, does not rotate at great speed, and does not make noise. Consequently, nothing wears out here. All these parameters are extremely important, since they are what distinguish the two technologies. Old HDD models were too sensitive to various types of vibrations, new ones were not.

So, hard ssd drive stores all information not in sectors on solid plates, but directly in memory chips. A special controller allows you to write data to cells and receive them from there, transferring them to the PC interface. Essentially, an SSD is a large flash drive with a huge amount of memory, but its performance or throughput is much higher not only than the performance of a simple flash drive, but also of outdated HDD drives.

Why is it even needed?

A more efficient and productive replacement for outdated HDD drives is the main goal pursued by the developers of digital media data. They have smaller dimensions, work very quickly and do not make noise during operation. On a computer that uses an SSD drive, loading the operating system is much faster, and overall performance is improved. different programs increases.

As for a laptop, where every watt of energy counts, SSD installation more than justified. Here it consumes little energy, which allows laptop manufacturers to provide higher autonomy to their models. In addition, due to the small size of these devices and lower heating, it is possible to create more compact laptops and don’t bother too much about implementing a hard drive cooling system.

Compound

Externally, the SSD looks banal: it is a small green board with microcircuits and a controller on it, which is placed in a plastic or metal case. On one side of the case there is a SATA connector through which the drive is connected to motherboard computer. Nearby is a connector for connecting power. Everything is the same as in a regular HDD.

So, the memory chips located on the board are information repositories. Unlike outdated hard drives used in HDD models, reading information from such media is much faster. Hence, GPUs They quickly receive the required information for processing from the hard drive, which speeds up the operation of the entire system.

Controller

The controller on the board is an analogue of the processor, only it is highly specialized. Its main task is the distribution of information in microcircuits. It can also perform various service tasks: cleaning memory, redistributing cells, etc. All service tasks must be completed in a timely manner, otherwise failure to complete them may lead to loss of information.

SSD media for laptops and desktop PCs also includes buffer memory for data caching. This is high-speed random access memory into which data is first sent, then modified and written to disk.

Installation

Most users initially know how to install an SSD. This procedure is completely no different from the process of installing a regular HDD drive.

Unable to install this disk wrong. You just need to insert it into the case, screw the assembly with screws and connect the SATA cable to the motherboard and to the media connector. The cable from the power supply is inserted into the adjacent connector. There are no cables with connectors in the system that could be mistakenly connected to the device, so there should be no problems with installation.

How it works?

It is quite difficult to explain the principle of operation of this device. It is based on the specifics of functioning certain cells memory. Here, data processing is carried out not in bytes, but in blocks. Moreover, each cell has a certain resource of write cycles, and the more often data is written and deleted from memory, the sooner the disk will exhaust its resource and fail.

Reading data is fast. All operations are carried out through a controller that “understands” required address block and accesses the required memory cell. There are times when it is necessary to read several non-sequential blocks at once, but this does not affect performance. There was no such advantage in HDD media.

The process of recording information is carried out in the following sequence:

1. Reading a block into cache.
2. Changing information in cache memory.
3. Erasing a block in memory.
4. Writing a new block to memory at an address that has been previously calculated by a special algorithm.

Recording involves accessing memory cells on a digital SSD media. Before recording, the block is cleared, and in order for the disk to wear out sequentially, the controller calculates the block numbers using special algorithms.

Note that blocks are erased while the media is idle. This reduces the time it takes to write to disk. In this case, user intervention is not required; the system automatically executes the command to clear the blocks.

Types of SSD media

There are several types of these devices. They are divided according to the type of interface that is used to connect to the PC:

1. SATA. Disks with SATA interfaces are the most common. The same connector is used to connect regular HDDs. There is also a smaller version of this connector - mSATA.
2. PCI Express. Video cards are usually connected through these connectors, but you can also connect a disk with the corresponding connector. Located this interface on the motherboard. When connecting a drive via PCI-Express, its performance will increase due to the higher bandwidth of this interface. Typically, SSD drives for servers are connected this way.
3. M.2 is another miniature option for connecting drives.

Characteristics

So, you now understand what SSD is. It remains only to mention the main characteristics of these devices:

1. Capacity. One of important parameters, which is most often indicated by the value of a non-multiple power of two. If capacity HDD drives was 256 or 512 GB, then the capacity of SSD devices is usually 240 or 480 GB, respectively. This is done due to the reservation of part of the memory by the controller, which is necessary to replace blocks that have exhausted their resource. The user does not see the replacement of blocks, and he will not lose data. That is, if the specifications indicate a volume of 480 or 500 GB, then in fact 512 GB are available there. It’s just that different controllers reserve a certain amount.
2. Speed. Most devices have speeds of 450-550 Mb/s. This speed is equal to the bandwidth of the SATA interface through which the drive is connected to the motherboard. However, this is quite enough for any task. After all, even the recording speed in applications is lower. The specifications most often indicate the recording speed, not the bandwidth.
3. Number of chips. The more memory chips there are, the more operations can be processed in one unit of time. That is, the number of chips determines performance. Typically, the write speed is higher for models with larger memory capacity. This is due to the fact that as memory capacity increases, so does the number of chips.
4. Memory type. The cheapest SSD drives have TLC memory, dear - MLC. Samsung uses and improves its own 3D-NAND memory. The differences in the type of memory used are not visible in practice.

Conclusion

Despite the fact that such digital information repositories vaguely resemble modern large flash drive, there are differences between them. In particular, these disks have a wide range of implemented modern technologies, due to which a large increase in productivity is achieved without loss of reliability. The speed of the entire system increases significantly when replacing the old hard drive with a new solid-state drive. Now we have finally figured out what SSD is and what its features are.

Almost every user has already heard about solid-state drives, and some even use them. However, not many people have thought about how these disks differ from each other and why SSD better HDD. Today we will tell you what the difference is and conduct a small comparative analysis.

The scope of application of solid-state drives is expanding every year. Nowadays SSDs can be found almost everywhere, from laptops to servers. The reason for this is high speed and reliability. But, let's talk about everything in order, so first let's see what the difference is between a magnetic drive and a solid-state drive.

By and large, the main difference lies in the way the data is stored. Thus, HDD uses a magnetic method, that is, data is written to the disk by magnetizing its areas. In an SSD, all information is recorded in a special type of memory, which is presented in the form of microcircuits.

Features of the HDD device

If you look at a magnetic hard disk (MHD) from the inside, it is a device that consists of several disks, read/write heads, and an electric drive that rotates the disks and moves the heads. That is, the MZD is in many ways similar to a vinyl record player. The read/write speed of such modern devices can reach from 60 to 100 MB/s (depending on the model and manufacturer). And the rotation speed of disks usually varies from 5 to 7 thousand revolutions per minute, and in some models the rotation speed reaches 10 thousand. Based on the special device, there are three main disadvantages and only two advantages over SSDs.

• Noise that comes from electric motors and rotation of disks;
• Reading and writing speeds are relatively low, since some time is spent positioning the heads;
• High probability of mechanical breakdowns.

• Relatively low price for 1 GB;
• Large data storage capacity.

Features of the SSD device

The design of a solid-state drive is fundamentally different from magnetic drives. There are no moving parts, that is, there are no electric motors, moving heads or rotating disks. And all this thanks to a completely new way of storing data. Currently, there are several types of memory that are used in SSDs. They also have two interfaces for connecting to a computer - SATA and ePCI. For the SATA type, the read/write speed can reach up to 600 MB/s, while in the case of ePCI it can range from 600 MB/s to 1 GB/s. An SSD drive is needed in a computer precisely for faster reading and writing of information from the disk and back.

Thanks to their design, SSDs have many more advantages over MZDs, but they are not without their disadvantages.

• No noise;
• High read/write speed;
• Less susceptible to mechanical breakdowns.

• High cost per 1 GB.

A little more comparison

Now that we have understood the main features of the disks, we will continue our comparative analysis further. Externally, SSD and MZD are also different. Again, thanks to its features magnetic storage much larger and thicker (if you do not take into account those for laptops), while SSDs are comparable in size to hard drives for laptops. Also, solid-state drives consume several times less energy.

To summarize our comparison, below is a table where you can see the differences between the disks in numbers.

Conclusion

Despite the fact that SSDs are better than MZDs in almost all respects, they also have a couple of disadvantages. Namely, this is volume and cost. If we talk about volume, then at present solid-state drives are significantly inferior to magnetic drives. They also benefit in cost magnetic disks because they are cheaper.

Well, now you know what the main differences between different types drives, so all that remains is to decide what is better and more rational to use - HDD or SSD.