Buying a laptop with a few terabytes of storage might sound awesome, but that is probably not the best idea. At least not if you splurged a lot of money on a Core i5 or better, only to drag it down with a 5400 rpm spinner.
For your storage options, you can choose between Solid State Drives and Hard Drives. Solid state is the next technology, and hard drives are simply on their way out. Just like any new technology, they cost more.
What Is An SSD
Without making assumptions, an SSD is a Solid State Disk. In essence, an SSD is a larger, more performant USB memory stick.
A typical SSD uses NAND-based flash memory. This is a non-volatile type of memory. This simply means “Storage type”, as it won’t erase when you power down. SSDs can store data way, way faster than the HDD. SSDs have become so fast that the storage interface had to be redesigned, after they blew through the ceiling for SATA.
The table below shows a comparison between and SSD and an HDD.
| Attribute | SSD (Solid State Drive) | HDD (Hard Disk Drive) |
| Power Draw / Battery Life | Less power draw, averages 2 – 3 watts, resulting in 30+ minute battery boost | More power draw, averages 6 – 7 watts and therefore uses more battery |
| Cost | Expensive, roughly $0.20 per gigabyte (based on buying a 1TB drive) | Only around $0.03 per gigabyte, very cheap (buying a 4TB model) |
| Capacity | Typically not larger than 1TB for notebook size drives; 4TB max for desktops | Typically around 500GB and 2TB maximum for notebook size drives; 10TB max for desktops |
| Operating System Boot Time | Around 10-13 Seconds Average Bootup time | Around 30-40 seconds average bootup time |
| Noise | There are no Moving Parts and as such no sound | Audible clicks and spinning can be heard |
| Vibration | No vibration as there are no moving parts | The spinning of the platters can sometimes result in vibration |
| Heat Produced | Lower power draw and no moving parts so little heat is produced | HDD doesn’t produce much heat, but it will have a measurable amount more heat than an SSD due to moving parts and higher power draw |
| Failure Rate | Mean time between failure rate of 2.0 million hours | Mean time between failure rate of 1.5 million hours |
| File Copy / Write Speed | Generally above 200 MB/s and up to 550 MB/s for cutting edge drives
Over 1000MB/s for non SATA |
The range can be anywhere from 50 – 120MB / s |
| Encryption | Full Disk Encryption (FDE)Supported on some models | Full Disk Encryption (FDE) Supported on some models |
| File Opening Speed | Up to 30% faster than HDD | Slower than SSD |
The Verdict
If you are paying more than $500 bucks, you probably should just slap on the SSD. If you are a power user, you should know better than to buy an HDD. Basically, the only time you shouldn’t buy the SSD is if you are budget constrained and are a heavy multimedia consumer or producer. And you could also make the SSD your primary drive, and a large HDD secondary.
In short, buy an SSD. Thank me later.
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