Solid State Drives or SSDs – Worth It?

Rather than bury the answer deep in the article, the answer is YES!!! HDD, or Hard Disk Drives have been the norm for decades. They are spinning disks with multiple read/write heads (think record player) though some of you may not know what that is. The disk spins at typically between 5400 to 7200 RPM. That’s a lot of spinning for multiple hours a day for multiple years. SSD, or Solid State Drives, have no moving parts, and offer a much more reliable storage medium. The HDD in your computer is always the number one part to fail on desktops, and even more so on laptops. This is where your data and programs are stored. Most people don’t back up their information (covered in a future post). It’s a catastrophe waiting to happen. HDD are rated on average to read and write at 100mb/sec., but what we see in data transfer scenarios is that the actual speed is closer to 30mb/sec. SATA SSD, which are backwards compatible with older systems, are rated around 560mb/sec. and we see transfer speeds of around 300mb/sec. The newer NVME SSD that you can find in new systems, are rated at 2500mb/sec. with some closer to 5000mb/sec. The hard drive has been a major speed bottleneck for years as processors and memory kept getting faster, but the drives didn’t keep up. Everything on the computer runs from or through the drive so having a hard drive in your computer is keeping you from optimum performance. Crazy thing is, most new systems still have HDDs because there are millions of them in the manufacturers’ warehouses, or because they are a few dollars cheaper.   We are seeing combo systems with a fast SSD to boot Windows, and a large HDD to store all of your data and programs. Sounds a little misguided to put all of your data on the HDD which is the #1 point of failure for your computer. Really BAD idea. We have been upgrading systems that are 10–12 years old if the technology is still viable, extending their useable life by several years.  The upgrade starts at $159 for a 500GB SSD, including labor, or $209 for 1TB with larger sizes up to 4TB available. Upgrading allows you to keep all programs and data intact, so no reloading programs, printers, Wi-Fi pw, etc. When you turn on your computer, everything is still there, except for the tortoise-like performance.  Compare that to the cost of a new computer, data transfer, program repurchase, printer reinstallation and setup. If you have any questions or want to discuss upgrading your system(s), please call us at 817-431-6003, or email us at [email protected].