You can also be interested in these:
SSD or Solid-State Disk hard drives are a relatively new standard when it comes to manufacturing these components for data storage, however, surely you didn’t know that there are different types of SSD hard drives, such as SSHDs or NVMe. Now, first of all we will start this analysis by breaking up what this technology is and how it came about. After that, we will through all the types of SSD available in the market today. After all, we all have been benefiting from the amazing speeds in data storage and stability this technology offers without even knowing there is a plethora of SSD types around.
What is an SSD?
An SSD is a hard drive that has been modified to change its moving parts for static parts, hence its name “Solid State”. Traditional hybrid disks, HDD or Hybrid State Disk have several moving parts that are responsible for writing and storing data magnetically, however, the new solid standard allows information to be stored on microchips by means of electrical impulses, which makes the writing and reading process much faster.
In recent years, the market for SSD hard drives has displaced the traditional drives, as happened several decades ago with the upgrade from the CD reader technology displaced by DVD readers. SSD hard drives can be used in any modern PC, but can also be used in other types of devices compatible with the good old HDD.
It is very difficult not noticing certain similarities between SSDs and removable storage units, it is thanks to NAND 3D Flash technology that it is possible for these hard drives to function as a large solid storage medium, such as USB memories. However, the big secret is that this technology is much better in different aspects. Let’s take a look at the advantages and disadvantages of solid-state drives.
Advantages of SSD hard drives
As soon as you find out about the advantages that a solid-state hard drive has for you, you will want to run out and buy one. Of course, it is necessary that you also know the disadvantages as well. These are the reasons why you should change your old HDD for an SSD type:
- By not having moving parts, the life span of these units is greatly increased. The moving parts of HDDs wear out over time, causing them to fail after several years of use, solid-state hard drives do not have that problem.
- In terms of speed, these hard drives are several times faster than traditional drives, not only making data transfer faster, but also optimizing everything related to the startup of the operating system, usability of applications and above all, video games and programs that use large amounts of data transfer.
- Power consumption is much lower than a typical hard drive as transferring via electrical impulses requires much less power than it takes to spin moving parts in an older drive. In addition, they are silent, you will not hear the beeps, squeaks or start-up of the conventional HDDs.
- Now, this is all secondary, the main reason why tech-savvy people decide to make the switch from an HDD to an SSD is that the speed achieved by those in this second group is enormous. So, you can have an idea of how much the improvement would be in terms of loading programs and starting the system, we let you know that you would get a PC 20 times faster than your current system with a hybrid disk.
- Another advantage is heat generation. SSDs are more optimal at keeping your system cool.
- Finally, there is the advantage in matters of size. A solid hard drive is more compact than an ordinary one, resists greater abuse in terms of shock and temperature and is also much safer than an HDD. The reason for the latter is that even if you delete the information on your PC, it stays “hidden” until it is overwritten by other information. This does not happen on SSD disks; the information disappears completely when it is deleted.
Disadvantages of SSD hard drives
Now that you have seen the advantages, you will have to contrast them with the disadvantages of SSD hard drives, this way you will be able to assess whether it is worth changing your old HHD hard drive for these disks with new technology:
- The main difficulty when purchasing an SSD hard drive is its price. Thanks to all the advantages it includes, it is not a cheap technology. However, prices for drives under 256 GB are affordable for a good portion of technology enthusiasts.
- SSD hard drives will take time to reach capacities as high as the latest generation HDD type hard drives. An SSD-type hard drive can get at about 2TB at the time of this writing, while hybrid hard drives can reach up to 10TB of storage.
- Another negative point is the availability of disks in the market. The solid-state drives are state-of-the-art technology in development, so the market may not meet the growing demand for these drives, which naturally drives up the price of each.
- It is not possible to recover data from a solid-state hard drive, or at least it is much more difficult compared to recovering processes on a hybrid drive.
- SSDs have low compatibility with HDDs, this happens because the difference in speed makes the system feel unstable. This has a solution, which is to leave the solid-state drive for programs and the operating system and store multimedia elements on a traditional hard drive.
- Today’s SSDs fail faster than traditional hard drives. Yes, although in paper it seems to be the contrary, solid state hard drives fail faster than a hard drive with moving parts. This happens because the cells that transfer the electrical impulses can write and read information about a hundred thousand times, while their hybrid disk counterpart can carry out this process between a million and five million times.
What are the types of SSD and what are their features?
Although so far, we have only seen some differences between an SSD and traditional HDDs. You should know that there are also different types of solid-state hard drives. It is necessary to choose a disc with this new technology according to the use that you are going to give it, we make the path easier to walk for you by explaining the features of each one:
- NOR SSD drives: This type of drive has been around for a while now. They represent the first generation of this type of hard drives and have a low cell life, that is, they fail faster than other current SSDs.
- NAND SSD disks: this type of SSD integrates gates for the transfer of data using a more advanced technology, which allows them not to be damaged as quickly as in the case of NOR disks.
- SSD NAND SLC Drives: This variant of NAND drives writes data to the drive at a somewhat slower speed than most current drives, however, the data can be read way faster.
- SSD NAND MLC disks: this type of disks make possible a greater amount of space to store data, however, the number of times that the gates are put into operation is also greater, further reducing the durability of the SSD.
- NAND TLC SSDs: This type of solid-state drive usually has a large capacity and price per GB. However, its durability is poor, and it is not as fast as other SSDs.
- QLC NAND SSDs: This type of SSD is four times better than SLC, however, they do not have a long-life expectancy.
Types of SSD according to their size, dimensions and interface
SSDs, in addition to the technology they use, also differ in their dimensions, shape and interface. This may seem confusing to most tech enthusiasts who want to delve deeper into how SSDs work, but we’ve covered all of these areas below:
Types of SSD according to their shape
Depending on their shape, we can list about 2 types of solid-state drives, such as:
- 2.5-inch drives: These SSDs are small compared to traditional HDDs or SSDs, they were created primarily for use in notebooks, ultrabooks and laptops. Sometimes manufacturers decide to put bays of this size in their desktop PCs, in which a disk of this type would fit and work perfectly. All SATA3 type drives are of this type.
- M.2 disks: they are the traditional type of SSD disks which you can connect to the SATA port of your computer. Within this type are the mSATA, which are disks somewhat smaller than the traditional ones, and the NVMe are disks that can be connected to the PCI Express port.
Types of SSD according to their connection format
The type of connection of hard drives has been evolving little by little. From IDE-type, hybrid hard drives, to those with a SATA port, up to today, which can even be connected to PCI Express-type slots, where video cards are normally connected. Of course, there are other ways to connect an SSD hard drive to the PC, which are:
- USB connection: hard drives do not have a USB port from the factory since they are used internally in the PC, however, a small adapter or “enclosure” can transform an internal hard drive into a portable hard drive, this would be the only way a solid-state drive can be connected via USB. The main disadvantage of connecting a hard drive via USB is that the data transfer speed will be greatly reduced, being able to read only at about 480 MB/S.
- SATA3 connection: This type of SSD was made at the beginning of this technology; it has a decent data transfer rate of 6 GB/S and uses the standard 2.5-inch form factor.
- eSATA connection: eSATA use the same hardware characteristics as SATA3 type, however, these were manufactured to be used externally, sacrificing their transfer rate by half, which was relegated to about 3 GB /S.
- PCI Express connection: along the path of the evolution of solid-state hard drives, PCI Express type drives have arrived, which are considered the ideal ones in terms of data reading and writing speed. An SSD connected to such a slot can reach almost 16 GB/s in data transfer if the slot uses the PCIe 4 standard, furthermore, it is expected that in the near future they can reach 64 GB/s in the PCIe standard. 6.0.
- NAS connection: this connection for SSD hard drives is given through the use of wireless networks, allowing the hard drive to be shared among several users at the same time. You will not have to have this hard drive connected in a wired or direct way to the PC.
Types of Solid-State Disk depending on the controller you use
Solid state hard drives use two controller variants, AHCI and NVMe, whose particularities are:
- AHCI: Short for Advanced Host Controller Interface, this type of controller is used by all SSDs that connect via SATA or USB ports.
- NVMe: Its acronym stands for Non-Volatile Memory Express, a new data storage standard based on the use of PCI Express slots. This controller enables high speed data management, independence of bandwidth from other disks in parallel, and better overall performance.
Types of SSD hard drives according to their indoor or outdoor use
It is also necessary to mention the types of SSD according to their internal and external use:
- External SSD: Although solid-state hard drives do not include a USB port by default, it is possible to install such a drive in an adapter with a SATA port, which will practically turn it into an external hard drive with USB port. Sacrificed of course a large part of the speed of data transfer.
- Internal SSD: Internal SSDs are all hard drives that cannot be connected internally to the PC. They are especially PCI Express type, which is difficult to connect externally to the computer case or cabinet.