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Volumes and speeds have reached unimaginable limits in data storage as well as in all other areas. SSD made this reality which seems to be impossible a few years back.
In all stages of our lives, we are constantly bombarded with various documents, images, sounds and so on. We need to store or collect these things digitally.
Unfortunately, using traditional methods does not work anymore. Some of the solutions are to save them using drives, flash drives and similar devices. Among these ways, SSDs are the most preferred method at the moment!
What is SSD?
The SSD (Solid State Drive) can be defined as a hard disk that uses electronic equipment, such as memory chips, rather than mechanical parts, to store your data.
Hard disks consist of the high-speed rotating disk and the units that write to this disk. However, SSDs do not contain such mechanical parts.
Why SSD is so fast?
Since the introduction of SSDs, computer speeds have increased dramatically.
To understand let’s give an example:
In case you go to a government office, you need to extract a file from the archive. The person in charge is sending you to the archive department. The authorized person in the archive searches through hundreds of files by name and file number and finds your directory file.
Let’s consider the scenario where the same government department has switched to the electronic archive system. Now the person in charge can give you exactly what you want without leaving his/her desk.
The human factor archive system in this example can be compared to hard disks; the write operation is equivalent to the drive disk, and when you try to open a file on your computer, the recording on that drive is reached. But in a fully electronic system where everything is written with 1 and 0’s, you don’t have to wait for minutes to get the data you want.
There are milliseconds between the data request and the data supply.
How fast?
In the scenario where two systems using hard drives and SSDs have the same system and hardware components, it is not difficult to predict that the SSD will run faster.
But the real question is; how fast is SSD as compared to the regular hard drive?
SSD drives are not affected by physical restrictions such as HDDs. However, if the data on the disk in the HDD is on the external part of the disk, it is more difficult to access than the internal partitions.
SSDs are designed to access all data at equal speed. This creates a speed difference of around 20,000 percent. Also, the data fragmentation problem experienced by HDDs does not affect SSDs.
The data can be collected quickly even if it is deliberately distributed.
How long is the service life?
Unfortunately, no data storage is guaranteed for life. This also applies to SSDs. SSDs, which we know as NAND Flash has data cells. But eventually, due to the wear of these cells, they lose their storage properties.
To extend this time, manufacturers applying wear compensation systems distribute the desired data evenly across all NAND flash cells. This prevents one flash cell from being used more than the other.
However, the lifetime of the SSD is determined by the intensity of use. Loading too much data will complete the life of an SSD that has been erased faster.
To better describe this situation and to provide users with information about the lifetime of SSDs, the manufacturers who created the term TBW. TBW describe how much data density the SSD will complete in its lifetime. That is, if an SSD with a capacity of 250 GB has a life of 30 TBW, it will expire when the sum of write and delete operations from usage activity reaches 30 TB.
Advantages and disadvantages of SSD
Unfortunately, every development has a price… Although SSDs have been in our lives for some time, they can still be described as new compared to other storage methods. As with any new technology, this makes the price of SSDs higher than other storage systems.
The HDD’s motion and impact-sensitive structure during operation are not present in SSDs. The absence of any moving parts in the box means that SSDs are fully compatible with mobile use.
In contrast to the audible operation of HDDs, SSDs produce almost no sound. SSDs requires less power and there is no heating problem which is common in HDDs.
Despite the storage capacities of HDDs that reach TB levels, SSDs can offer these values with very serious price tags for now. This explains why HDDs still work in collaboration with SSDs.