Solid State Drive Versus Hard Disk Drive free essay sample

To responds to the need for speed, Solid State Drive that were slow to be adapted because of the luxurious cost are now becoming the new technology due to its rising popularity and known advantages. This paper will discuss by comparing the two technologies. Solid State Drive versus Hard Disk Drive As technology advances— as never before, the battle of different companies and human technical intelligences to make things more dreamlike drives them to creating better emerging technologies. If we can remember history, we would know that the Information Technology (IT) world has developed quite a bit. Computers come from the Electronic Numerical Integrator and Computer (ENIAC) — with dimensions of about 9 feet by 3 feet by 80 feet, taking up 680 square feet, and weighing 30 short tons— to tablet PCs, with hundreds of better and faster capabilities, that we can hold in our palms, or smart phones that we can hold in our pocket without any noticeable indication. Our eager for better and faster IT gears stimulate our tastes and intelligences to create devices that are not only more portable but also can do more. For the latter to be practicable, the components that make up these gadgets need to respond to the demand of speed, size, and adaptability of our thrust. The permanent storage device inside the computer (also known as memory drive, HDD, or SSD) has always been an integral part of any electronic devices configured because it contains every piece of information the computer holds. As an essential component of computer systems memory, permanent memory drives also have seen intriguing evolutions from hard disk Drives to Solid State Drives. Today, with the abundant number of different options that are made available for computer users to save computer data and files, and because of our divergence in preferences, needs, and adaptabilities, the debate of the choice between Solid State Drive (SSD) and Hard Disk Drive (HDD) becomes a battle that calls for attention. The computer’s permanent storage devices or secondary memories, the Hard disk drive and Solid State Drive (also known as Solid State Storage—SSS), has known a fascinating history. From the year 1956 when IBM invented the first hard disk drive, to the year 1978 when STK introduced the first solid state disk, and to present, hard disk drives and solid state drives have seen tremendous progresses. The differences that exist between the two drives set them apart and create IT debates as far as which one of the two is the best choice of permanent computer storage memory drive. Simply put, only the facts can provide the signs indicating the best choice. In this topic we will discuss and cover in detail the background and explanation of the two technologies; a comparative analysis of the main reasons these two types of hard drives are different; the prices differences; the pros and cons of both; and which one is a better choice according to the facts. The HDD is the conventional drives that have been around for a longer period time that most of us who use a computer have used. They are the ones most computers are shipped with. For a brief history, â€Å"before the disk drive there were drums In 1950 Engineering Research Associates of Minneapolis built the first commercial magnetic drum storage unit for the U. S. Navy, the ERA 110. It could store one million bits of data and retrieve a word in 5 thousandths of a second. In 1956 IBM invented the first computer disk storage system, the 305 RAMAC (Random Access Method of Accounting and Control). This system could store five megabytes (Mb). It had fifty, 24-inch diameter disks. In 1973 IBM shipped the model 3340 Winchester sealed hard disk drive, the predecessor of all current hard disk drives. The 3340 had two spindles each with a capacity of 30 MBs, and the term 30/30 Winchester was thus coined. In 1980, Seagate Technology introduced the first hard disk drive for microcomputers, the ST506. It was a full height (twice as high as most current 5 1/4 drives) 5 1/4 drive, with a stepper motor, and held 5 Mbytes. The worlds first gigabyte-capacity disk drive, the IBM 3380, introduced in 1980, was the size of a refrigerator, weighed 550 pounds (about 250 kg), and had a price tag of $40,000. A hard disk drive consists of a motor, spindle, platters, read/write heads, actuator, frame, air filter, and electronics† [ (Byard, 2005) ]. The most import parts of a hard disk drive are the platter, the heads, and the actuator. The platter is a hard highly polished aluminum or glass compact disk, coated in a magnetic medium and rotates at very high speeds, over which Information can be stored permanently, deleted, or written. Information is stored on the platters by sending pulses of current from the drive electronics to the head. The actuator determines the speed of the drive and how many bits it can pack on its platters. In order for data read and write errors to not occur the actuator must align the read/write head precisely. The actuator on most recent hard disks employs a voice coil mechanism. It functions much like the voice coil in a loud speaker, thus its name† [ (Byard, 2005) ]. The heads are there for writing to the drive and reading from it. They are bonded to a metal suspension, the head arm, which is a small arm that holds the head in position above or beneath a disk. Because of the involvement of the mechanical parts that the HDD is made of, hard disk failure is very possible. But hard disk drive has known some advancement that keeps them the number one used drives on the market today although it may not be the best technology. On the other hand, SSD drives are less common. The history of SSD goes back to 1976, twenty-two years later than HDD creation. For some history, â€Å"although manufacturers in the industrial controls market, like Square D and Allen-Bradley were using rewritable user removable non volatile solid state storage modules as early as the 1970s, it wasnt till much later that the solid state disk market evolved into a form which we would recognize today. For most of its early life, this technology remained an open secret mainly used in embedded systems in military applications, or in high performance computer research labs† (Kerekes 2011). According to history, the first SSD, called Bulk Core was sold in 1976. â€Å"In January 2006, Netcom became the first notebook maker to qualify flash SSDs for use in Windows XP, Linux and Solaris notebooks† (Kerekes 2011). Contrary to HDDs, SSDs have no moving parts. They are flash drives. They are distinguished from traditional HDDs by using microchips to retain data in non-volatile memory chips instead of spinning disks and movable read/write heads. A solid state disk (SSD) is electrically, mechanically and software compatible with a conventional (magnetic) hard disk. The difference is that the storage medium is not magnetic (like a hard disk) or optical (like a CD) but solid state semiconductor such as battery backed RAM, EPROM or other electrically erasable RAM like chip. (Wang, w. w. amp; De Peralta, J. 2005). â€Å"Simply stated, solid state storage is data storage made from silicon chips instead of spinning metal platters or streaming tape† (SNIA 2009). Solid State drives are less used than HDDs today because companies shipped computers with HDD more than they do SSDs for a lot of reasons. In the next paragraphs, we will show some of the reasons SSDs are less used. Some of the factors in a comparative analysis of the main reasons these two types of hard drives are different are in the way the drives are built that diverge their performance factors, their reliability assessments, and their cost variations. First and foremost, these two drives are built differently and the difference between them is significant enough to set them apart. The main difference between SSD and HDD is that data in a SSD is accessed completely electronically and HDD is an electro-mechanical machine. In other words HDD spins and SSD does not. Data in the SSD is accessed almost instantaneously due to the fact that it has no moving parts. â€Å"Because enterprise-grade solid state storage accesses data directly from RAM or Flash chips, it can achieve input and output data rates far greater than conventional, magnetic storage devices such as hard disk drives (HDD). †(SNIA 2009). On the other hand, the HDD has to spin in order for data to be accessed. This difference between the two shows that SSD is better when it comes to data access time and power consumption because SSD may take a few milliseconds to boot up from a power-saving mode but HDD needs at least seconds. SSDs are starting to become popular now because of the need for speed by new technologies. Another factor of consideration between the two drives is reliability. The failing rate of a hard disk drive is a lot greater than the rate of solid state drive because of the lack of mechanical components in SSD. Why? â€Å"The reason is simple wear and tear. Just like any good old machine with mechanical components, HDDs tend to deteriorate over time. HDDs consist of rotating, magnetically coated disks, known as platters, which are used to store data. This rotating motion of the echanical arms results in much wear and tear after long periods of use. The operational lifespan of a computer HDD is typically over three years. A Flash-based SSD is different. Although the most common Flash chips have around 300,000 write cycles, the best Flash chips are rated at 1,000,000 write cycles per block. On top of that, Flash SSD manufacturers employ different ways to increase the longevity of the drives. In some cases, they use a balancing algorithm to monitor the number of times each disk block has been written, which greatly extends the operational lifespan of the drive.