Ssd disk for a computer why is it needed. The role of the SSD drive in games and how important it is. Disadvantages and limitations

The main problem of many PCs with more or less normal hardware is a mechanical hard drive - HDD. It is not super fast by definition, because the rest of the components are just waiting for a response from it, whether it is writing or reading information. Actions of any nature, including hard use disk, whether it is starting the operating system, opening or moving files, running games or programs, a more modern disk format, SSD, will be much faster.

The main difference between an SSD and an HDD is that the former has no moving parts. For this reason, solid state hard disks(SSD) don't wear out as much physically. In addition, they surpass their mechanical counterparts in all respects: SSDs are energy efficient, almost do not heat up and do not vibrate at all. There are two main types of SSD, but more on that later. The first - SATA SSD - is about 4 times faster than mechanical hard drives when writing and reading. The second type, which is called PCI-Express SSD, is 7 times faster than HDD.

The only major downside to solid state drives is the cost. Identical in SSD memory and HDDs differ significantly in price - 25-30 dollar cents per 1 GB on a solid state and about 5 cents on a mechanical one. Note that before the difference was even more noticeable. In 2010, 1 GB on a good solid state drive cost about $3. By 2012, the cost had dropped to $1 per GB. The trend of cheaper SSD is associated with the increasing spread of this technology and the increase in the production of drives of this format. It should also be said that solid-state drives are still far from HDDs in terms of maximum volume.

This is where cloud storage comes to the fore, gaining more and more popularity. After all, if there is one, then the huge volume of the drive becomes not so relevant.

Now about the types of SSD drives. There are two types of interface for connecting drives, which were mentioned earlier (SATA and PCI-e). There are also two protocols for data transfer (AHCI and NVMe) and several connectors and form factors (SATA, mSATA, M.2 SATA M2 PCI-e).

SATA is the older of the interfaces, which is also used on the HDD. Maximum speed for SATA, mSATA and M.2 SATA is 600 Mb/s. This solution is more used by office computers - it is faster than HDD and not as expensive as PCI Express.

PCI Express is a more modern interface that transmits up to 985 Mb / s over a single-lane channel. And if we take into account that PCI-e have either two- or four-lane channels, then the speed increases to 1970 and 3940 Mb / s, respectively. The latter figure is 6.5 times faster than the maximum speed of SATA. That is why such high-performance PCI-e is chosen when assembling gaming computers and graphics stations, which is very important speed of information exchange with the hard drive.

M.2 is the connector specification for both possible SSD interfaces. Now such a connector is in most new laptops and high-performance desktop PCs. M.2 drives are available in different sizes: M.2 2280 (22 mm wide and 80 mm long) is the most common, but it is easy to find shorter versions of M.2 2242 (22 mm wide and 42 mm long) on ​​sale .

SATA SSDs use a relatively outdated information transfer protocol - AHCI. On fast PCI-e, there is a modern and accelerated NVMe protocol. It has been designed specifically for SSDs from the ground up to deliver optimal write and read speeds. Almost all PCI-e drives use this protocol.

When buying a solid state drive yourself, you need to check the selected interface, dimensions and key. Almost all M.2 drives are 2280. Most PCI-e uses an M key, while SATA uses a B+M key.

It's no secret that today the computer has become a very dense part of our lives and is almost an integral part of it. Every user would like to have a computer device that combines great design, great performance and, of course, an insignificant price. However, this combination is quite rare. If a good design solution and a low price can still be combined, then high performance and low cost is a rare phenomenon. Therefore, one of the best options that will help increase the speed of your favorite computer is to purchase and install an SSD solid state drive.

Today, solid state drives are used in almost all computer devices: laptops, smartphones, desktop computers, netbooks. In terms of their power, they significantly outnumber hard drives.

What is a solid state drive for?

If we compare the increase random access memory and the use of SSD, you can see that in the first case, the performance increases by only 10 percent, and in the second - three times.

If, for example, you “upgrade” an old laptop with a solid state drive, then its efficiency will be equal to the efficiency of a modern computer device of a corresponding price category. Also, when using an SSD, the launch speed of all programs without exception increases significantly.

Solid state drives have a number of positive qualities, due to which they are quite popular among users. These qualities include:

1. sustainability:
2. absolutely silent operation;
3. high read or write speed;
4. low power consumption;
5. small dimensions and weight.

SSDs, compared to hard drives, whose moving heads and rotating magnetic platters are sensitive to various kinds of damage, practically do not react to the same damage and shock. Their memory microcircuits do not have moving parts, therefore they are insensitive to negative external influences. For example, if a laptop, netbook or smartphone accidentally falls from a small height, then no data will be affected by this.

If we talk about silent operation, it is worth noting that the presence of flash memory plays an important role in this. Thanks to it, data is transferred at a fairly high speed, and the computer device itself works absolutely silently.

Installing an SSD

In order for a solid state drive to provide an increase in the performance of a computer device, first of all, it is necessary to install it correctly. Modern computers have a special compartment for this. This allows you to use both an SSD and a hard drive at the same time. However, to increase performance, you need to move the operating system from the hard drive to the solid state drive.

To simplify this process, manufacturing companies release special computer programs. In addition, you can purchase external containers that facilitate the use of SSD as removable media. To do this, using a USB cable, information is transferred to a solid-state drive, then, after removing it from an external container, it is installed on a computer device. It is worth noting that all data from the hard drive remains in place.

Sometimes there are computer models that do not have a special compartment. Then the hard drive will simply have to be replaced with an SSD solid state drive. In this case Information system is transferred to an external hard drive using an SSD with an external container, and then replaced.

How to choose the right SSD

The choice of an SSD, as well as its installation, must be approached with all seriousness. Since the performance of a computer device, whether it is a laptop, a desktop computer or a smartphone, largely depends on this.

The main characteristics that affect the increase in computer performance are:

1. solid state drive capacity;
2. excellent memory;
3. controller;
4. connector.

So, for example, both the controller and flash memory have an extreme impact on the data transfer rate. If a consumer wants to download a movie he likes, then, of course, it will be convenient for him when this happens as quickly as possible. Therefore, it is these two qualities that determine how long the film will be downloaded - 45 seconds or a minute and a half.

The best connector for a solid state drive is the SATA connector through which data is transferred. An SSD with a SATA3 or SATA2 interface also helps increase data transfer speeds. In this case, the speed of the drive is several times greater than the speed of the hard disk.

Increases the speed of the computer device and the capacity of the SSD. Of course, if the computer is equipped with a 500 GB solid state drive, then its performance will be much higher than that of a device that is equipped with a 250 or 120 GB SSD.

It goes without saying that storage capacity is directly related to price, which increases with capacity. But it is worth noting that the funds spent in the future will pay off with the ability of a computer device to maintain its performance for several years.

Leaders in Solid State Drives

The popular magazine Computer Bild conducted an independent test, which compared solid state drives and identified the leading models. Depending on the speed of data transfer, performance, power consumption and heat dissipation, the Samsung 840 Pro SSD became the leader among drives with a capacity of 120 gigabytes. The first place among solid-state drives with a capacity of 250 and 500 gigabytes was taken by SSDs from the well-known company OCZ of the Vector series.

When choosing and installing an SSD, it is worth remembering that it does not reduce power consumption or increase offline work computer device. Despite replacing the hard drive with an SSD, these two numbers remain the same as they were before the replacement. However, this quality of a solid state drive absolutely does not affect its relevance among modern users.

Today, some manufacturing companies are able to produce solid state drives for individual orders consumers, thanks to which, the latter will always be able to choose for themselves those SSDs that meet their requirements for a design solution and, of course, performance.

It is worth noting that the level of performance and efficiency of SSDs is evolving quite quickly, although the capacity remains the same. However, this indicator does not have a significant impact on changing consumer attitudes towards this kind of equipment. And, despite everything, the demand for solid state drives is increasing every day. And this means that the future is for SSD!

Hello friends! Technologies do not stand still and are developing more and more rapidly every year, especially in the computer industry. Even, it would seem, yesterday we only learned about the three laws of robotics, composed by Isaac Asimov, and today the Japanese are already designing dolls, the electronic “stuffing” of which exceeds half the power of a small server room, but who have never heard of the mentioned laws.

The changes also affected the field of data storage. Today you will find out what an SSD drive is and why it is needed, whether such a device is needed in principle, or somehow you can do without it.

Why solid state

Such drives have been known for years, but most users have only recently turned their attention to them as a worthy alternative to traditional hard drives. So why is it called solid state? The name comes from English word Solid - "Solid state". In fact, this is an ordinary microcircuit built on semiconductors - such a green board with a bunch of tracks that everyone who has ever disassembled the body of an electrical appliance has seen.

The architecture of the device resembles the already familiar flash drives. SSDs use the same type of energy-saving memory circuitry that won't lose data even when power goes out for a long time. The difference is only in dimensions, capacity and recording speed. In addition, a flash drive is designed to be used as a plug-in external device, and an SSD is still, in most cases, an internal device.

Externally, solid-state drives resemble hard drives, but differ in size - they are smaller. According to standardization, there are slightly different form factors here: for example, M2 or U2. This does not mean that the SSD cannot be installed in a regular system unit: there are special adapters for old cases, and new cases are already equipped with seats.

Benefits of an SSD

A logical question may arise - what is such a device in a computer for, if there are hard drives that are familiar and affordable in terms of price. And the advantages of solid state drives are already several:
Higher speed of reading and writing data. This is especially appreciated by users who process large files, as well as by gamers whose games load faster.

Less power consumption. For portable computers, this is a decisive factor, because the device will be able to work longer on the same battery charge.

Greater service life. Due to the lack of mechanical parts, the likelihood that the device will not fail at the most inopportune moment is higher.

Impact resistance. When transporting the device, it is more likely that the user will not lose important data due to a fall or mechanical impact. This is the reason for the growing popularity of portable SSDs.

Often, a small SSD is installed on a computer as a system volume, for faster loading of the operating system. Such a computer will not only boot faster, but the OS will also be faster due to quick access to all system files.

Disadvantages and limitations

You may ask: if this device is so chic, why don't all users use it on PC? Alas, everything still depends on the cost: for a similar price, you can buy a regular hard drive with a capacity ten times greater than an SSD. When assembling or upgrading a computer, users are often limited in funds, so you have to “siege the horses”, maneuvering between the coolness of the part and its cost. And so we would set everyone, yeah.

There is still a misconception among users that SSDs are unreliable. Yes, this was observed at the time of their mass appearance on the market. The reason lies in the use of cheap controllers that did not do their job. Today, the cheapest SSD is guaranteed to survive up to 3,000 write cycles. For higher quality devices, this figure rises to 10,000. This is even more than a traditional HDD.
Another myth is that operating system you need to somehow cunningly configure it to work with a solid state drive - for example, disable the paging file. This is wrong. All the user has to do is to activate the AHCI mode in the BIOS, which is necessary for correct operation devices. Please note that old motherboards this mode is not supported - instead of it, there is already an outdated IDE

Why is it necessary

"To be or not to be?" the reader will think. Buy an SSD or save money by buying something else. According to the reviews of my clients, no one has yet experienced dissatisfaction with the purchase of such a device. There were a few claims about warranty repairs, but this is already a statistical error that always shows up with large numbers of sales.

And if you are nervous every time the computer starts to “stupid” and freeze, SSD is the best option to get rid of such phenomena. At the same time, you most likely will not stop being nervous, but you will already find another reason, but the computer will “fly” with such a drive.

True, there is one small "BUT". You quickly get used to good things, and then you will feel a little uncomfortable working on a computer with a regular HDD. But these are small things, right?

And if you are already heading to the online store for a new SSD drive read this manual - it will help you correctly. You may also be interested, of course, if you think that you can’t go anywhere without an HDD.

I advise you to pay attention to the Kingston SSDNow A400 120GB 2.5″ SATAIII TLC device - a good and affordable 120 Gb drive.

And with that, I say goodbye for today. Thank you for your attention, friends, and see you next time. Don't forget to share my blog posts on in social networks. Computer literacy to the masses! And to be notified when new articles arrive.

Hard Drives vs. SSDs

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

The benefits of flash storage cannot be ignored: fast access times, high data transfer rates, and superior I/O performance. We also note the mechanical reliability, low power consumption and silent operation.

With so many manufacturers offering SSDs at the moment, it's hard to separate the wheat from the chaff. If you go directly to the test charts page, you can see just how much SSDs outperform hard drives. Even if you do not 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 SSD

It is difficult to assess the benefits of SSD based on tests that are designed to compare different drives with each other, relative to other upgrade methods ( new processor, graphics card).

As a result, ordinary users seeking to build a modern high-performance PC can be advised to buy a small SSD drive and store most of the files on the hard drive, spending the bulk of the funds on updating other PC components.

If you ask a few ordinary users what kind of computer they would like to have, then the answers are likely to be similar. Processor on architecture Sandy Bridge, at least 4 GB of RAM, a 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. So you can get almost all the benefits of SSD technology without going broke on a large-capacity solid-state drive.

The Superficial Look Isn't Always Right

Our opinion is generally based on real, comparable data. The 2TB 7200RPM drive looks no doubt more attractive than the old 120GB 5400RPM model. If earlier throughput SATA interface was 300 MB / s, now it has reached 600 MB / s. As you can see, the evolution is obvious, but for many such figures 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 really speed up applications significantly. The second problem is the small volume and high cost of SSDs.

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 by comparing a simple SSD with one of the most powerful magnetic platter drives.

Samsung 470 Series vs. Seagate Barracuda XT

HDD: Seagate Barracuda XT, 3TB

We opted for a hi-end hard drive that combines high performance for an HDD with a large capacity. The Seagate drive is quite capable of representing this comparison HDD as 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 speed - 7200 rpm. As the latest generation drive, the Seagate Barracuda XT combines high sequential read and write speeds, decent - for a hard drive - response time, relative to high performance I/O operations. The drive is equipped with the latest SATA 6Gb/s interface. However, given the real peak performance of 160 MB / s, this is clearly just an advertising ploy: it was enough to limit ourselves to the previous version of the SATA interface.

Seagate XT belongs to the upper price bracket (about $250). It will appeal to those users who prefer modern hardware, but so far are cautiously looking towards the SSD. The drive is backed by a five-year Seagate warranty.

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

SSD: Samsung 470 Series, 128 GB

Representatives of this Samsung line have previously been repeatedly used by us as reference drives 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 470th series is represented by 64, 128 and 256 GB drives equipped with a morally obsolete SATA 3 Gb / s interface. If we compare the Samsung 470-series drive with the latest models of 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 delivers data transfer speeds of up to 260 MB/s. Some of the latest SATA 6 Gb / s SSD models are capable of going over 500 MB / s in serial data transfer operations. The difference is significant. Our position in this case is that even the previous generation of solid state drives is far 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 bottom line is that even if the Samsung 470-series drive is not exactly what computer enthusiasts dream of, this drive It fully corresponds in terms of characteristics to a standard "middle class" SSD, and in this sense, its choice is justified taking into account the purpose of this review. If you are interested in the question of 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.

Feature Comparison

Performance

As you can see in the video at the end of this article, an SSD drive 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 the SSD is due to the significantly higher data transfer speed. 2.5" hard drives reach 60-100 MB/s, 3.5" - 100-150 MB/s. Moreover, these figures reflect the performance of the HDD in the most favorable conditions for them. The characteristics that vendors like to give in specifications for a particular HDD model relate to sequential data read / write operations - here the lag hard drives appears to the least extent. When the hard disk head moves to another partition / sector of the disk, the speed of operations is rapidly reduced.

Disk usage modes that prioritize I/O performance are not HDD-friendly. An example is Windows boot, which involves reading a huge amount of small blocks of data. Here, when comparing a hard drive with an SSD, the picture is even more sad.

The data transfer rate in such modes drops to a few MB/s. This applies even to 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.

An 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 transmission channels. Such an architecture is capable of providing sequential read speeds from a couple of hundred MB / s to record values ​​- more than 550 MB / s. However, as we have already noted, hard drives also perform well in serial data transfer.

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

Thus, it is not uncommon for hundreds of MB / s to turn into only a few tens in practice. But while we are talking about blocks of about 4 kbytes in size, which are used by modern file systems, SSDs still remain 10-20 times faster than HDDs, 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 only noticeable, but striking.

Energy consumption and heating

SSDs consume, at most, a few watts. Hard drives can use up to 10 watts per hour or even more if files are actively copied. Modern SSDs don't get hot at all. Hard drives, on the other hand, often need cooling. Normal air circulation inside your computer case is likely to be enough, but the question of proper cooling disk system Still worth considering when self-assembling a PC.

Design features and reliability

SSDs have no moving parts, which makes them very reliable. Theoretically, there is a possibility that you will subject the SSD to extremely high vibration or shock, so that the chip soldering is broken. In practice, this situation is unlikely.

The exact same tiny chance of soldering failure exists with hard drives, but the real danger lies in the presence of moving elements - magnetic platters that rotate at high speed, and read / write heads. The principle of operation of a modern HDD resembles an old-fashioned gramophone.

Mechanical parts have a certain resource and, in general, the reliability of a hard drive is lower. Any strong shake 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 in terms of mechanical reliability, they are still significantly inferior to SSDs.

Whether an SSD drive will outlive a hard drive is impossible to say with accuracy. It is known that HDDs are more prone to failure, as their design combines electronics and mechanical elements. On the other hand, SSDs are more sensitive to firmware and we know of cases where a solid state drive has become unusable due to firmware failure. Potential reliability issues for SSDs and HDDs are different, but exist in both cases. You can learn more about the issue of comparing the reliability of SSD and magnetic platter drives in the article. "Which is more reliable: SSD or HDD?" .

Test stand configuration

The results of these tests are indicative for most models of SSDs and hard drives. The components under test are selected to obtain best comparison for both configuration options. The drives are tested on very similar systems. The purpose of this review is to assess the benefits of using an SSD as a system disk. We do not seek to prove that SSDs have advantages in all forms (in fact, we do not recommend using them for data storage).

Test results

Sequential Read/Write

CrystalDiskMark and Iometer clearly show significantly more high speeds data transfer compared to a high-end hard disk. 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 gap between SSD and HDD might not be that significant, but in a synthetic test, the difference is striking.

According to CrystalDiskMark, the hard drive runs at 4K blocks in random read mode at 1.6MB/s and writes at 0.7MB/s. Similar indicators for SSDs are an order of magnitude higher: 19.7 MB / s for write operations, 70.6 MB / s for reading.

As the queue depth increases, the performance of the SSD increases even more, which is explained by the fuller use of its multi-channel architecture: 129.4 MB / s for write operations and 70.5 for reading. For the HDD, we also see a 3x increase in random write speed (up to 2.1 MB/s) thanks to NCQ support. However, the gap to the solid state drive is further widening.

In the case of larger blocks (in this test, 512 KB), the hard disk can provide much better speed than we just saw. However, the SSD still holds the lead here. A modern 6 Gb/s solid state drive would provide a more serious break from the HDD.

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

At a high 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 470 128 GB achieves a performance of 28,000 IOPS. 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 a full cycle of rewriting the entire block. Therefore, in write operations, the SSD gap is not so blatant, but we are still talking about an order of magnitude difference. 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: an SSD is 12 times faster than a hard drive.

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

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

Access time

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

PC Mark 7

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

Exceptions include video processing in Windows Movie Maker, as well as script Windows boot media center. In these tests, SSD and hard drive provide close results.

Energy consumption

The smallest difference between an SSD and a hard drive in terms of power consumption is seen 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 database applications, the Samsung 470 outperforms a Seagate hard drive by 476 times (I/O per watt).

In the test for streaming efficiency, the SSD outperformed the hard drive by 7 times.

Here it is necessary to briefly highlight the issue of measuring "capacity per watt", since SSDs are inferior to hard drives in this indicator. To provide the amount of disk space corresponding to the Seagate Barracuda XT 3 TB, you will need to build an array of fifteen SSDs. In this context, discussing "capacity per watt" is only theoretical. 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 PC use. A significant percentage of the overall performance rating is given to OCR or archiving operations. It is worth noting that AMD indicates the presence in SYSMark of some optimizations for the Intel architecture.

Please note that in the 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 is also turned off faster - in five seconds instead of eight in the case of an HDD.

Application launch

We use a script that opens four applications at the same time. As in the case of OS boot, the speed advantage of launching applications on a system with an SSD drive is quite significant. How it looks in practice, you can see in the video.

Run 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. Script starts Internet Explorer 9 (offline version of the THG website), Microsoft Outlook(the same set of user folders as in SYSmark 2012), "heavy" PowerPoint presentation and a large image in Adobe Photoshop.

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

Our test simulates the scenario when 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 enough 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 the hard drive with an SSD, on the contrary, fundamentally 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 opt for the latest SandForce SF-2200 controller drive that goes over 500 MB/s in sequential read, the difference compared to the older SSD model we used in this test will not be too noticeable. If this is your first time trying to use an SSD as a system drive, 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 advise this upgrade option. Undoubtedly, the game is worth the candle. Although not every benchmark reflects the benefits of using an SSD as a system drive (in particular, in SYSMark we do not see a significant gap), the real difference in performance is striking.

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

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

For most cases, the ideal configuration of a modern PC includes a system SSD drive and a large hard drive that stores movies, music, images, documents. Non-SSD systems are budget options, and SSD-only computers are almost never found in nature.

Now the main distinguishing features fast computer It is a powerful processor, a large amount of RAM and a solid state drive. However, many users, when choosing components for their new computer, find it difficult to choose: should I buy an SSD drive or should I still take a regular HDD? A vivid example from life: one of my comrades has a company and System Administrator ordered a batch of computers, replacing the classic hard drive with a solid-state SSD. The question arose - did the system administrator make the right choice in this situation ?!

Yes! The choice was made correctly and now I will explain why.

What is an SSD?!

Speaking in a simple and understandable language for the average user, then a typical SSD drive is essentially a large-capacity flash drive that uses NAND non-volatile memory modules and is connected via a high-speed SATA interface or PCE-Express.

Here are the main comparative characteristics of an SSD SSD and a classic hard drive:

To summarize the table briefly, the SSD is light, fast, with low consumption, but at the same time expensive and still has a smaller volume for a similar price.

Does it make sense to buy an SSD?

To give an accurate answer to this, you first need to decide what the user wants to receive from the purchase?!

Amount of information. Of particular relevance to the topic is the fact that now at the price of a solid-state drive with a volume of 240-260 Gigabytes, you can buy a regular hard drive for 2-3 Terabytes. Is it just that such a volume is needed now for a computer or laptop? For an office PC, where work is mainly done with documents and projects, and everything important is stored on a network drive, Terabytes are not needed in principle. It's more about speed.

For home use usually they buy two devices at once: an SSD drive to use it as a system drive, and a separate large hard drive for file storage. Instead of the latter, removable external hard drives connected via USB are often used now. This option is especially relevant for a laptop. And if we take into account that the era has come cloud storage, then storing such volumes of information on your PC or laptop simply does not make sense.

The speed of working with data. Now separately let's talk about speed. Due to the use of a solid state drive, your laptop or computer will load the operating system in a few seconds, launch programs and applications much faster, saving files and projects will be done instantly!

SSD for games. But do not expect that using an SSD drive will make games “fly”, as many novice users think. Using it will not increase the number of FPS in the game and the quality of the graphics will not improve. He is absolutely in no way able to influence this! Network games will not be accelerated either, since the speed there depends mainly on the Internet access channel. But cached files and data stored locally will load much faster.

Reliability. Some time ago, solid state drives were considered unreliable and there was information that they quickly failed, literally just having worked out the warranty period. Now the situation has changed for the better! SSD failures happen much less frequently than conventional hard drives. But the nature of these failures is much more insidious due to the fact that the SSD has a much higher number of uncorrectable errors and the data cannot be recovered in the future. By the way, these errors practically do not depend on the number of read and write cycles that used to frighten users. In practice, I have yet to come across a disk that runs out of cycles. So we can assume that they are quite reliable.

Summary

So, if you have not yet decided for yourself whether to buy an SSD or not, then my verdict is unequivocal - it's worth it. These devices are fast and reliable, and the volume of 240-520 GB, in principle, is enough for any task. Yes, a little expensive, but the effect on the face! They are the future. The era of conventional hard drives is gradually passing away and the day is not far off when they will simply cease to be manufactured!