Until recently many users would not consider spending the extra money for a solid state drive in their computer. However, lately prices have come way down on these devices, making them more affordable solutions. Now we are beginning to see users adopt SSD’s as their primary boot drive. Why you ask?
Solid State drives offer a few features not found in traditional mechanically spinning disk drives that everyone has used for over two decades. Hard drives took over the personal computer market shortly after 3.5″ floppy disks became prominent in the industry, mostly for the ability to store more data and make it more quickly accessible. Since then we have seen larger, faster and cheaper hard drives developed, and new media like USB flash drives for portable data storage, but no real major shifts have occurred in data storage until the SSD arrived on the scene a few years back.
The SSD offers a non-mechanical method of data storage because essentially it is a memory chip used to store data, just like a USB flash drive. It is resistant to shock from being dropped, has no moving parts to wear out, and is absolutely silent in operation. Because there are no moving parts, data can be accessed much faster and we are seeing major performance increases on computers. The other feature is that SSD’s require far less power to operate, thus making them an excellent solution as a laptop drive.
Are SSD drives infallible? No, they can still stop functioning and lose data, so don’t stop running your backups! But since they have no moving parts to wear out, and they can take a pretty good jolt without any effect to the storage media, they do make a pretty solid storage solution.
The biggest reason I see to using SSD’s is the speed at which you can boot a computer and launch applications, due to the faster access capabilities. Since the SSD costs quite a bit more than traditional hard drives, it is not the solution for massive storage of data at this time. It is, however, very affordable as a primary boot drive up to about 256GB, which allows most users plenty of room to store their operating system and applications that they run daily. A second drive, using a traditional hard drive, then provides the additional major storage component for power users who need more storage on their computer.
Technology Unlimited has built a large number of Dell and custom built PC computers using an SSD drive as the primary boot device. The results have been fantastic and the clients have loved the speed at which they can boot their computer and access applications. If you would like to know more about adding an SSD drive to an existing computer or building a new computer with an SSD boot drive, give us a call at (405) 773-6037. We’ll be happy to go into further detail about the benefits of SSD drives and get one built to your specifications.
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