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What is SSD?
Solid State Drives (SSD) are flash based data storage devices for your laptop or desktop PC. An SSD works in a similar way to a traditional hard drive but without the need for any moving parts. This is the key difference between the two types of drive and as a result an SSD is faster, quieter, more durable and energy efficient than it's traditional counterpart.
Top 10 benefits of SSD
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SSD vs HDD
| Solid State Drive | Hard Disk Drive | |
| Startup Time | With no mechanical parts to spin up the SSD's startup time is almost instant. | Can take several seconds for the mechanical parts to spin up. |
| Access Time | Approximately 0.1ms as data is accessed directly from flash memory. | From 5-10 ms as the disk heads need to move and align before data can be read. |
| Consistency | SSD Read performance is consistently fast at all times regardless of where data is stored on the device. | Read performance can vary depending on the location of data on the drive, particularly where fragmentation occurs. |
| Reliability | No mechanical parts virtually eliminates the chance of device failure. | Traditional Hard Disk Drives are likely to fail over time as parts become damaged or worn. |
| Power Consumption | Power consumption is typically 1/2 to 1/3 of that required for a standard Hard Disk Drive | Extra power is required in order to spin the discs and move the read & write heads. |
| Volume | SSDs are silent in operation as there are no mechanical operations. | Dependent on model but typically make more noise due to the spinning of the discs. |
| Size & Weight | Flash memory is very small and light in comparison to traditional HDDs. | Can vary due to size and performance but generally much larger and heavier than SSD. |
| Durability | SSDs and the data stored are not susceptible to damage from vibration, shock or magnetic fields. Changes in the environment also do not have effect on an SSD. | The moving parts are very fragile and can be easily damaged. In addition, environmental changes and magnetism can damage or destroy the data on the drive. |
SSD Terminology Explained
| Solid State Drive | ||
| Internal SSD | An SSD that fits inside your notebook or desktop PC. | |
| External SSD | SSD that connects to your notebook or desktop PC using an external interface; for example via USB. | |
| SATA | Serial Advanced Technology Attachment a computer bus interface for connecting host devices (e.g notebook / Desktop PC's) to mass storage devices (e.g HDD's SSD's etc). | |
| SATA-II | SATA 3Gb/sec. Transfer rate is 300MB/s. | |
| SATA-III | SATA 6Gb/sec. Transfer rate is 600MB/s. | |
| EDC/ECC | EDC: Error Detection Code. ECC: Error Correction Code. | |
| Garbage Collection | Before a block in SSD can be rewritten, it must first be erased (means the Data Garbage needs to be removed). TRIM enables the SSD to handle this "garbage collection" during downtime. All SSDs will include some level of garbage collection. The question is when and how fast it will operate. TRIM is state of the art to handle Garbage Collection. | |
| SMART command support | S.M.A.R.T (Self Monitoring, Analysis and Reporting Technology) is a little program with a set of commands in order to detect potential HDD failures. Target is to replace drives proactively before they fail. | |
| Trim command support | A Trim command allows an operating system to inform a solid state drive which blocks of data are no longer considered in use and can be wiped internally. This is a command sent by the OS which tells the SSD which data can be ignored during garbage collection. | |
| Native Command Queuing (NCQ) Support | Allows HDD's and SSD's to optimise the order in which received read and write commands are executed, reducing unnecessary workload and increased performance. | |
| Global wear levelling algorithm | If a particular memory block were programmed and erased repeatedly without writing to any other blocks, this block would wear out before any other block. Wear levelling distributed the data evenly across all the flash blocks in the SSD. | |
| MTBF rated | Mean Time Between Failures. Predicted time between inherent failures of a system during operation. It is worked out as the sum of the operational periods divided by the number of observed failures. | |
| NTI ECHO cloning software | Drive cloning software enabling the cloning (copying) of the notebook/PC hard drive to the solid state drive. | |
| Molex | Type of two-piece pin and socked interconnection. | |
| NAND Flash | Type of Flash memory, a non-volatile computer storage chip. NAND Flash memory is like blocks of memory, each block consisting of a number of pages. | |
| MLC / SLC | Multi-Level Cell (MLC) and Single-Level Cell (SLC ) are two different types of storage cell of NAND Flash storage. SLC stores one bit per cell. It costs more, however consumes less energy. Transfers data a little faster and overall is more durable that MLC. MLC stores more than one bit per cell. The main benefit is higher storage density, since double the amount (or more) of data can be stored to the same chip surface as compared to SLC. This offers a significant price advantage, since the required chip surface is an important factor in the manufacturing process. | |
| SSD Controller | The Controller manages the data on the flash memory and communicates with the notebook/PC. There are different controller manufacturers in the market; for example Jmicron, Indilinx, Marvel and Innostor. The performance of the SSD is dependent on the controller used and at present one of the most popular used for high level performance is the SandForce range. | |
| Bad Block Management | The bad block management of SSDs sees to it that data out of flawed areas (cells) is pushed into functional cells, which is then excluded from the further storage of data. This means that the storage capacity of the SSD becomes smaller with the operating duration, but the data security and data transfer speeds stay on the same level. | |
| IOPS | Input and Output operations per second. The IOPS show how many input/output demands the SSD can process. The higher the value the quicker the drive, however, as the drive runs for longer periods the number of IOPS decreases as the number of operations it has to perform increases. | |
| Supercap | The SuperCapacitor (Supercap) serves as a temporary but reliable energy buffer. In case of a sudden power loss, the drive can complete its activity without losing the data. Supercap ensures weight savings and longer lifetime. | |
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1MB = 1,000,000 bytes 1GB = 1,000,000,000 bytes. Some of the capacity is used for formatting and other functions, and thus is not available for data storage.
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"Verbatim" and
logo are the trademarks of Mitsubishi Kagaku Media Co., Ltd. registered in EU and other countries.1MB = 1,000,000 bytes 1GB = 1,000,000,000 bytes. Some of the capacity is used for formatting and other functions, and thus is not available for data storage.
Website Design & Development by Orckid
