The term SSD is an abbreviation and stands for „solid-state drive“. It is an electronic storage medium. Flash memory chips and SDRAMs are used for SSD storage. SSD storage media are silent. This is because they do not have any moving parts and therefore cannot generate any noise. While the data in conventional hard disk drives (HDDs) are written magnetically to disks by mechanical read-write heads, the SSD is a purely electronic hard disk. The data is stored in digital memory cells. Its greatest advantage is the short access time, because each of these cells can be accessed directly and without detours via its own address With HDDs, on the other hand, the read-write heads must first travel to the data. If the data are distributed in different locations, they have to be gathered together in a time-consuming process

Advantages and disadvantages of SSDs

SSDs run completely noiselessly, are insensitive to shocks, produce little waste heat and do their job even under extreme conditions. Above all, SSDs are blazingly fast and can give any hard drive system a major performance boost. But they also have disadvantages. One disadvantage of SSDs compared to HDDs is their durability. While classic HDDs can theoretically be written to an infinite number of times, the memory cells in SSDs wear out somewhat with each write operation.

The most important advantages of solid state drives in brief are:

  • short access times
  • high transfer rates
  • no start-up times
  • no mechanical wear – high reliability
  • robust against shocks and vibrations
  • low energy consumption
  • low heat generation
  • silent operation
  • high storage density

The following disadvantages can be listed

  • more expensive than conventional hard disks
  • the number of read/write cycles of the semiconductor memory is limited

System turbo

As a system data carrier, the SSD gives every PC and notebook an enormous performance advantage over the HDD, among other things because the operating system in particular retrieves small data blocks from a wide variety of locations. In addition, the user benefits from short storage times for applications. However, if you have an HDD and would like to clean and speed up your hard drive, we have the Paragon Hard Drive Manager 15 Professional for you, with which you can clean out and relieve your hard drive.