For those that dont know, SSD stands for Solid State Drives, which perform the same functions as a hard drive (HDD) but in a much different way. With a hard drive you have several platters that a needle reads off of, similarly to a record player, only much much more complex. SSDs have no moving parts which makes the access time to get to the data virtually nonexistent. This makes them very advantagous over a traditional HDD because they can access the same data in much less of the time and require less power to do so because they dont need to physically move to get the job done. If they are so good why doesnt everyone have them and HDDs just get wiped out of existance. well the main reason is storage. SSDs are pricey, even a 32GB SSD will cost over $100. Now adays you can get a 1.5TB (1500GB) drive for just over $100. so why would someone be willing to pay so much money for such little storage. the answer is simply to get things done very quickly. With a traditional HDD, i would press the power button on my computer, walk away and have enough time to make a sandwich and come back and still be waiting for apps to load on the desktop. now upgrade that to a quality SSD and in a mere 10 seconds you will be ready for productivity. SSDs dont just improve the speed of windows boot times, but the speed of every application that you want to load, from games to photo editing, to even word documents or excel spreadsheets. an SSD is a must have device for a computer and is going to also be the most cost effiencent upgrade for a computer. not only can you upgrade your current computer with an SSD but any complete system upgrade you do down the road will accept an SSD. the current interface is SATA which can provide up to 6GB/s. Current SSDs today have read speeds of around 230MB/s which is nowhere near the 6GB/s interface and newer SATA interfaces will be backwards compatable with older drives. That Makes the SSD a very worth while investment. The other disadvantage of an SSD over the HDD is the lifespan. SSDs only have a specific amount of write cycles they can do before they cant successfully write to it. never fear tho because the number of write cycles is 10,000. if you had a 32GB drive that would mean you would have to go through 320TB of data which would be a challenge to do in years and years of heavy daily use. The most cost effective way to upgrade to an SSD is to buy a small sized 32GB or 64GB and use that drive to install windows (preferably windows 7, more on this later), and any programs that you use on a daily basis. when buying a drive, try to figure out how much space windows and your apps will take up and then you will have to account for atleast 30% free space left over for working space. personally i use a 32gb SSD on my laptop and a 60gb SSD on my desktop. i have over 8gb free on my laptop with a full windows 7 install and all the programs i ever run. now where do i store all my music and video files. the answer is simple, on the much cheaper HDDs. however if you have a laptop the answer is not as simple because most usally only allow for one internal drive. There are computer manufacturers out there that make laptops that have multiple drives. normally these laptops are much more expensive because the manufacturer designed them with a Raid array in mind. personally ive been using Dell Latitude series laptops fas my primary computer for over 7 years. they have a modular bay that can except a cd/dvd burner drive, probably even a blu-ray drive now adays, secondary extended battery, or an internal drive. if having a second drive in your computer isnt an option there is always the choice of getting an external drive. they make nearly wallet sized external HDDs that can hold over 500gb for around $100 that just plug into a spare usb port and have fairly fast transfer speeds.
With a SSD as you boot drive you will see a HUGE performance gain right off the bat. Everything loads nearly instantly, words really cant express just how impressive it actually is. after a few months of daily use you may notice your computer just isn't going quite as fast anymore, its still way faster than before the upgrade, just not as fast as it once was. your drive indicates that its got plenty of free space but it acts as if the drive is completely full. when a file is deleted on a computer, it is still present on the drive, the link to the file is deleted and the opportunity to write over that previous data is allowed, although that may not happen for sometime, depending on drive time and usage. so even though the operating system reports this free space on the drive, it is in a sense already used. Unlike when there is a completely full drive that could be a serious problem when the operating system has to write something and cant, this is not a serious problem and you will always be able to write over the data and use the space for operating functions, however it will still slightly slow down your system. A few Newer top end SSDs come equipped with the solution to this problem, and many slightly older models have had new Firmware updates that address this. It is called Trim support. What Trim does is that it sends a command from the operating system to the SSD indicating which parts of the drive have data on it and which are free. This communication between drive and operating system provide for continued performance throughout the lifespan of the drive. The only operating system to date that supports Trim is Windows 7. the new Linux kernel supports it but has not been released in any Linux Distribution yet. The next Mac Operating system will most likely include support but it is not yet supported on the Mac platform. If you already have a an SSD, the Firmware update to Trim is very important, however, if certain steps arent taken to wipe the drive clean, all 0's on the drive, then Trim support will only have the knowledge of since the update and not know whats on the drive from before the update. thus the data on the drive from before will have a terrible impact on perforance. For more information, follow my guide on Trim FW Updates.
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