For Thanksgiving this year I am most thankful for solid-state drives. I had an HP notebook with an HDD (Hard Disk Drive) and recently bought a refurbished Lenovo laptop with an SSD (Solid State Drive). It is a great deal faster than my old computer. Though my new computer also has a better processor and more RAM, part of the significant difference in speed has to do with now having an SSD. It is much more expensive than the hard disk drive counterpart, but it was well-worth the cost because I value speed more than disk space.
Primarily, what makes SSDs much faster than HDDs is that there are no moving parts. In HDDs, there is a spinning magnetic disk and a mechanical arm that has to move over the disk and read from and write to the correct positions on the disk, whereas in SSDs, these operations are entirely electronic using flash memory.
Generally speaking, when a mechanical operation can be replaced with an electronic operation, the task will be completed faster. The difference is amazing. Once you go SSD, you’ll never go back.
For more information, check out these great articles and reviews:
PC Mag: SSD vs HDD: What’s the Difference