What is SSD [Solid State Drive]?

SSD or Solid State Drive is nowadays in demand. SSD is just like our normal Hard Disks in appearance, but it is superior to Hard Disks in many ways. HDs have some disks [platters] in it that rotates just like a DVD rotates when you put it in a DVD-Drive.

Disks in HD rotates and a head moves in a to and fro motion to read data off the disks.

On the other hand, SSD is like the RAM that we have in our PC. We all know that data transfer rate of RAM is much higher than that of a HD: same is the case with SSDs. Read/Write speed of SSD is higher than a HD.

SSDs do not have disks like HD: they have ICs like RAM.

Here are few advantages of SSD over HD:

HD are slow to start up PCs as there are disks in HD that first rotate and then the head reads the data. This whole process takes time. SSD on the other hand is like RAM where finding data is not a problem at all. There is no delay in SSD so if you have it installed in a PC, then expect to see very fast computer startup.

As there is no motor, disks, rotating head etc in SSD, that makes it much less power hungry than HD. It consumes less power.

Read and write rate for SSD is much better than HDs.

Compared to HDs, SSD produces very little heat.

SSDs are quiet.

SSD can access data in it randomly without any delay. HDs have head that rotates to find the required data: thus a delay is produced.

HDs have head and rotating disks: a shock above threshold can damage the HD. Where SSD can take even bigger shocks and can still operate without damaging anything.

SSD have less weight than HDs.

On the other hand, here are some disadvantages of SSD:

Currently, SSDs are expensive than HDs.

SSDs have less capacity than HDs. Possible reason is the cost of making SSD with higher capacity.