by Patrick Darski

Created on: November 21, 2009

We'd all like our computers to be significantly faster. The classic answers is to buy more RAM, which would allow your computer to store a larger chunk of data on hand. This is great, but RAM has it's limitations, namely, you cannot store files long term. What really slows down the lightning fast performance of RAM, is the modern Hard Drive.

The Hard Drive is where all of the data on your computer is stored, in a complex array of positive and negative electrical charges. The HDD has one major downfall, and that is speed. Because of the way data is stored on the device, a large amount of moving parts are required. The disk actually has to physically move around in order for you to get your data. Although newer models are quite fast, they come no where near the speed of an SSD.

An SSD, or Solid State Drive, is a new kind of hard disk that requires no moving parts, and is based heavily on nano-technology. For the end user, this basically means that it will be extremely fast, quiet and efficient. In fact, not even the fastest conventional hard drive on the market has half of the read/write speed of an SSD. Not to mention, the absence of moving parts ensures that there is virtually no noise created whatsoever by the drive. That's right, you'll never have to listen to that annoying whirring again. Another major benefit of the SSD is that it doesn't require any start up spin, which increases boot-up speed by a good margin.

Conventional Hard Drives also differ in the way that data is deleted. Basically, because of the way that the Hard Drive store data on various tracks, it is oftentimes possible to recover files, or at least some sort of data from the drive, even after the file is deleted. Solid State Drives remove this possibility, once a file is gone, it's gone for good. This, is of course assuming the data has been actually overwritten, not just deleted in the conventional operating system style (Which doesn't actually remove the file, but just marks it as free space). This is a double standard however. On one hand, it ensures much more privacy to the user, on the other, if a file is lost, recovery may very well be impossible.

Still, the one major downfall of the SSD is it's price. You will end up paying very high prices for a small SSD disk, and so it becomes impractical for the home user. However, as the technology is improved and becomes more popular, the price will eventually drop and become acceptable. Until then, the price will remain the only flaw in an otherwise "perfect" product. If you need the speed, and can afford it, an SSD is certainly for you.

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