Choose capacious, fast and, most importantly, reliable hDD for a laptop from the huge number of different hdd and ssd that are currently on the market, it’s impossible to understand what parameters you should pay attention to when choosing. It's like playing in a casino or a lottery - there is a chance, but it should strive for a figure close to zero.
When selecting a laptop or netbook, everyone relies on the main parameters of the device’s speed and reliability, such as: manufacturer, processor clock speed and / or its model, RAM size (very rarely - type), display diagonal, video card power (built-in or discrete ) Concerning hard drive, then the choice occurs only by its volume (the more the better), but this is not always the case.
A laptop hard drive has more critical parameters for reliable operation than its desktop counterparts. For example, if the spindle speed, hdd and power consumption in ordinary computers are not critical for the reliability of its normal operation, then when working in a laptop, these parameters directly affect the reliability of the disk subsystem and the safety of your data.
Now we will consider what it is better for us to install into the laptop from the commercially available drives, for its long and uninterrupted operation.
Before market launch SSD driveov, the bottleneck in the performance of any computers was just their disk subsystem. Even the best and fastest (including server hdd) with speeds of 10,000 and 15,000 rpm are currently several times slower than the average SSD drive parameters. Next, consider the pros and cons of using a laptop hard drives and solid state drives.
HDD
This is a traditional kind of hard drive. It is based on mechanics and consists in the presence of a magnetic head, which reads and writes information to magnetic disks. The number of these drives affects the volume of the hard drive and its overall dimensions.
pros
- the main and probably the only advantage is the best price-volume ratio.
Minuses
- low write and read speed (in 90% of modern laptops they put disks at a speed of 5400rpm, which affects performance);
- extraneous noise due to the work of mechanics;
- greater power consumption;
- disk heating during operation;
- vulnerable to shock loads (if you drop hdd, then most likely it will not work, it is especially dangerous if it happens during its operation). Ssd does not have this drawback;
SSD
This is a modern type of storage device. SSD (Solid State Drive) is a solid state drive. Its design and internal structure is fundamentally different from the previous generation of hard drives. It completely lacks mechanical parts, as it is based on microchips and controllers. In principle, this is the same flash drive, only of a larger size, volume for data storage and significantly increased speed. SSD is a fully electronic device and call it hard drive not entirely correct. Compared with the previous generation storage device (HDD), it has a number of advantages:
pros
- the speed of reading and writing data is on average 4 times higher (it all depends on the type of memory used and the controller). There are already models that are faster than hdd by at least 10 times;
- lack of mechanics significantly increases reliability;
- there are practically no delays and downtime when working with data (the speed of access to data in solid-state drives is about 1ms, and in standard hard drives is 9-12ms);
- does not emit vibration and does not emit any extraneous noise;
- very low heat, which positively affects the operation of the disk and does not require additional cooling;
- low power consumption, which can not but rejoice, so the laptop’s battery life will increase;
- has significantly less weight compared to HDD;
- your information will not be affected if the drive or laptop falls with it, which could very well happen with a portable device.
Minuses
- what is a plus of hdd, ssd disk is minus. This is the price ratio for stored gigabytes of data. Of course, this ratio is gradually improving, and as technology develops, I think this shortcoming will disappear;
- with improper use and / or configuration, the life of an ssd is less than that of a hard drive (this depends on the operation of the operating system, the type and manufacturer of the memory used in ssd);
- in the event of a disk failure and loss of access to data on a solid-state drive, it is more difficult to recover data, and it will come out more expensive.
SSHD
It is not fair to bypass this type of drive. This is the so-called hybrid hard drive. In short, the main data is written to ordinary magnetic disks, but their arrival and processing takes place in a large buffer of fast flash memory (up to 32 GB in some models). Read more about this type of drive in the article.
Selection criteria and options for internal drives for laptops
SSD Drives: How to Choose the Best Option
You can significantly strengthen your laptop by changing mechanical drives to solid-state ones.
The cheapest SSD disk with 60 or 120 GB, having the same form factor as the HDD, is much better than even a top-end device with a spindle speed of 10,000 rpm and a cache of 32 GB.
So far, an SSD drive for a large-capacity laptop (500 GB, 1 TB) is expensive, and if you need to store a lot of information, then choosing a regular laptop hard drive will be preferable. If you need speed and a lot of free memory, you can turn off the CD-DVD drive, but instead. For example, a combination where there is a fast SSD for the operating system and a HDD for information may be optimal. Usually they use it for laptops, except when only one device can be connected to a laptop.
What drives to choose
Typically, the form factor determines the purchase:
- size (2.5 or 1.8 inches);
- interface (connector or standard for data transfer SATA 1, 2, 3);
- drive type (mechanical HDD, solid state SSD, or hybrid SSHD systems).
If SSD indicators for a laptop, such as size or connector, are almost impossible to change (unless using adapters), then data transfer standards are not so critical, for example, any new disc SATA 3 works well on an old laptop.
When thinking about which SSD to choose, remember that there are such cell standards:. The cheapest and short-lived memory standard TLC. If you need reliability and not too high price, take a reliable drive with MLC memory, the fastest is SLC, but it is too expensive and is usually used for servers.
You can choose the best option for yourself only by clearly identifying for what purpose the device will be used and what budget is expected. For example, if you need office work, it is better to take an SSD, even a cheap one, for torrents - an HDD or a hybrid device. Remember that SSDs have a limited number of cell rewrite cycles.
SSD Variations
In order for the laptop to please the owner with the speed and comfort of work, it is advisable to determine its characteristics before buying. In recent years, the internal form factor has been playing for mobile devices great importance. So, many smart gadgets use read-only memory similar to solid-state drive microcircuits, and some devices, such as tablets or netbooks, ultra-cheap laptops can also be equipped with eMMC removable drives. They have their own connector for connection and occupy an intermediate state between HDD and SSD in performance. Their memory size is small, about 32-64 GB, although there are samples with 128 and 256 GB.
A low-cost laptop should have at least 64 GB of memory, even an eMMC type, otherwise you will have to constantly deal with a lack of space (only Windows OS will require at least 20 GB).
Get a laptop with a sufficient amount of RAM, as its constant shortage greatly affects their constant loading, the data that, if there was a sufficient amount of RAM, would be loaded from it. This is the main reason why the laptop is very slow. It is better to choose a model with a less powerful processor and more memory.
More accurate data on the main characteristics of the hard drive installed in the selected laptop model can be found on the manufacturer’s website, which is not a panacea, as manufacturers can safely replace the drive of one company with another in a later release of this laptop model.
Conclusions and video on choosing the right hard drive for a laptop
What we came to after all of the above:
- The best option to upgrade a laptop’s disk system is to use a ssd drive as the main (system) drive. Conventional Hard Drive magnetic disks, which we take out of the laptop can be used in two ways: 1. Installing it instead of a DVD drive. How to do this and what is needed for this is described in a separate article, the link to which is above. 2. Make of it external storage connectable via USB. To do this, you need to purchase a special box.
- If the above option does not fit, then we simply replace hdd with ssd, but here the requirements for the solid-state drive in terms of volume and reliability should be tougher, since you will not be able to save important data to another medium, although it can help a flash drive. It all depends on their volume.
I think that for many I closed this question with this article, how to choose the right hard drive for a laptop. I myself have a Sony laptop in 2013 with 4GB of RAM, after upgrading to option 1 it just turned into a completely different device. Everything works quickly and is practically no different from a desktop PC, which also uses an SSD (Samsyng 840 EVO 120Gb) for the system. By the way, I bought it on aliexpress, as well as a more modern model (850 EVO) for a laptop. Everything came without problems and complaints. It's been almost 3 years on the PC. The flight is normal. On the laptop is not enough for statistics, but so far everything is OK. If there is a desire to make a turtle out of your laptop - a fighter, then here is a link to the seller.
When buying a new PC or updating the disk system of an old electronic computer, the question necessarily arises: “Which is better - SSD or HDD?” Five years ago this question did not arise. There was no alternative to a conventional hard drive (its second name is “Winchester” or simply “screw”). Therefore, it is precisely such devices for which were used everywhere. But now the situation has changed dramatically. Increasingly, users are paying attention to solid-state drives, which although they are more expensive, but at the same time they have a much higher performance.
History
Before we find out what is the difference between SSD and HDD, let's take a short historical digression and look at the storage technologies that are used in each type of device.
The first full-fledged hard disk drive (official name) was made by IBM in 1973. Then its volume was 60 MB (2 plates of 30 MB each). Over the past 40-plus years, such devices have evolved, and their characteristics have improved significantly - both capacity and speed. But the essence of technology has not changed. At the heart of any HDD (from the English words “hard” - hard, “disk” - disk and “drive” - in this case a drive) is a plate covered with a ferromagnetic layer. Using the head, a certain orientation is created in it (the “north” and “south” poles, which correspond to the logical “0” and “1”). SSDs were first introduced in 1978. But their widespread use began relatively recently - the first PCs equipped with them as the main drive appeared in 2009. Solid-state storage devices are built on the basis of semiconductor materials, which consist of "cells". Only two values \u200b\u200b“0” (no signal) and “1” (potential present) can be recorded in such a “cell”. Hence the difference between a hard drive and an SSD. The difference from the HDD consists in the fact that another material is used in the production (silicon against a ferromagnet) and a different principle of information storage (microcircuits against plates) is made. You need to remember this when choosing a new device of this class.
Classic version
In order to answer the question of which is better - SSD or HDD, we consider each device for storing information separately. Let's start with the second one. This is a classic version of organizing a disk system. The main characteristics of the hard drives are as follows:
- Capacity - the amount of information stored in decimal. At the same time, this indicator in the operating system will differ, since the calculation is already in progress. Storage devices with capacities from 250 GB to 8 TB are now available for sale.
- The connection interface can be IDE, USB and SATA. The first of them is morally and physically outdated and is used only on PCs that were released 5 years ago and earlier. The second is great for portable information storage. And the third, main - is now used almost everywhere. Its latest version has an index of "3". All devices capable of working with this version of this interface allow data transfer at speeds up to 6 Gb / s. SATA also has a special version with the “m” index, which is used only on laptops and netbooks.
- As noted earlier, it depends on the type of interface used. The higher it is, the better.
- The frequency of rotation of the plates. Now on sale there are models with 5400 and 7200 rpm. per minute. The higher this indicator, the higher the performance.
These are the main ones. In order to answer the question of which is better - SSD or HDD, you need to consider the parameters of solid-state drives. What will be done next.
Know how
There is no other name for SSD than know-how. These devices went on sale 5 years ago. Immediately constraining factors were their high cost and not large size. But now the situation is gradually changing. Increasingly, they can be found on desktop computers and laptops. The main characteristics they have are as follows:
- Capacity is the same as hard drives. Now models are available from 32 GB to 1 TB.
- Manufacturing technology can be from 19 nm to 26 nm. The smaller, the greater the speed, but this reduces the number of cycles of rewriting cells.
- Connection interface. All of them are similar to those given previously for the HDD, except for the IDE, which is not used for the SSD.
- The number of rewrite cycles. It can be from 1000 to 5000 cycles. The higher this value, the longer the SSD will last.
Based on the foregoing, you can easily give an answer to how the HDD differs from SSD and which one is better.
Drive Comparison
Comparing the performance of each drive, it can be noted that solid-state drives have a higher data transfer rate. This is provided by the technology itself. Microcircuits in this regard are better than magnetic plates. This is where the benefits of this type of device end. If you compare the cost and size of the drive, it turns out that at a price of 40-50 USD you can buy either 32 GB 
SSD, or 160-250 GB of HDD. Hence the choice of most users. At the same cost, a larger volume will be better than speed. Also, the maximum capacity of an HDD is 8 times greater (1 GB vs 8 GB).
What and where is better?
Now we will figure out what is better - SSD or HDD - in each case. For multimedia stations and office PCs, hard drives with a capacity of 160-320 GB are perfect. And the price is small, and this size will be enough for the tasks to be solved. The situation is similar with entry-level netbooks and laptops. But high-performance mobile computers it will be better to equip a 128-256 GB SSD. Gaming PCs and servers must be equipped with 2 drives. One for systems and programs is SSD. And the second is the hard drive on which user data will be stored. This will allow to obtain both high speed and the necessary volume for storing information.
Summary
In the framework of this article, a comprehensive hDD comparison and SSDs, their main characteristics are indicated, recommendations for their use are given, following which you can easily select the information storage device that is best suited for your needs.
Hard disks come in two types of HDD and SSD. The HDD consists of round magnetized plates, information is stored on them, and a read head that reads this information. Round plates usually rotate 5400 and 7200 rpm, it happens that their speed reaches 10k and 15k but this is already in server versions. In addition to speed, hard drives also differ in size, the size is indicated by the width in inches, 2.5 inches are used in laptops and 3.5 inches are used in system units.
An SSD is a large flash drive, but with a high read and write speed, the smaller the file size, the more significant the difference between an SSD and a regular hard drive becomes.
The advantage of ssd.
Just transferring one large file is a simple matter. To carry one large file an SSD drive will take 3 times and 4 times less time than an HHD drive, not to mention many operations with small files, and the HDD has big problems with them. For example, we need to copy a lot of photos or even just load Windows, the HDD at the same time spends most of the time searching for the necessary sectors on the plate and moving the read heads, and the SSD does not bother, it just gives the necessary data. As a result, an SSD can overtake a regular hard drive by 50-60 times, so that any program installed on an SSD will start several times faster. Also, the advantages of SSD include incredible strength (these disks are not afraid of bumps and drops).
Cons of SSD drive.
First minus this is its price. SSDs are much more expensive than HDDs. For example, for the same amount, you can enable an HDD disk with 1 terabyte memory or an SSD disk with 120 gigabytes of memory.
The second minus. You cannot recover information from an SSD drive. If you accidentally deleted a file, then all, restore the file will not work in any way, unlike the HDD disk. Files in the HDD can be quite easily restored using special programs.
The third minus. An SSD drive crashes, as a rule, only in its entirety. That is, if for some reason you have a power surge then the SSD burns completely with all the files. The HDD in this case only a small board will burn, and all the files will remain on the magnetic disks. The fee can be restored.
Fourth minus this is the volume, now in any store the HDD disk can be found for 2-3 or more terabytes. And in the meantime, SSDs have grown only 512 gigabytes, although this is also a rarity on sale usually found at 256 or less.
Fifth minus. This is a limited number of rewrite cycles. This is a dubious minus the number of rewrites on average 3000 cycles, but now there is already flash memory with 5000 rewriting cycles. If you have a disc with a size of 120 gigabytes and an overwrite quantity of 3000 cycles, then it should be enough for you provided that you write 120 gigabytes every day for 8 years.
Pros of SSD drive.
The first plus. This speed is the most important plus since the write and read speeds of an SSD drive are significantly higher than the speed of an HDD drive, on average it is more than 50 times.
The second plus. This is a noise level of 0 decibels. The SSD does not make any noise due to the lack of moving parts.
The third plus. Shock and vibration resistance. An SSD drive is not afraid of falls or vibrations.
The fourth plus. Low power consumption. Battery life increases.
Fifth plus. Light weight.
Just a few years ago, choosing for his computer, an ordinary user thought only about which manufacturer’s hard drive he should choose. Everything has changed from the moment that solid-state drives replaced the mass market. hard disks. They fully support all the features of a hard drive, but have a completely different internal structure.
SSDs do not have moving elements in their structure, but a memory storage element, which in ordinary hard drives It was a metal disc, on which, roughly speaking, the information was “magnetized”, in solid-state drives it is a microcircuit with constant memory.
Thanks to this structure, they got the name "solid state drives".
Solid state drives have some positive properties, thanks to which they are gaining an increasing number of fans every year. First of all, this, of course, is a low noise level (and this is the whole one).
Given that SSDs practically do not make noise, or make a very quiet sound, which is sometimes not even heard behind the noise of cooling fans, we can say that they work silently. This is a definite plus, since in most cases SSDs are installed in laptops and netbooks, which, given the low level of intrinsic noise during operation, using this type of drives become completely silent, and you can only find out if the laptop is turned on at the moment by looking at screen, or light indicators on the laptop case.
Another quite significant positive factor that speaks in favor of this type of drives is high speed. According to various estimates, the write and read speeds of hard drives and solid state drives differ about ten times. Indeed, according to user reviews, after replacing the hard drive with a solid-state drive, there is a significant difference in the speed of the system. Thus, the owner of a computer with a solid-state drive instead of a hard drive, receives two significant bonuses at once - almost silent operation of the memory device, and a significant increase in speed. But, not everything is so simple, and even such a technology has certain negative aspects.
First of all, the negative aspects of working with SSDs are their high cost with a small amount of memory. For comparison, the cost of a solid-state drive with a capacity of 64 gigabytes is equal to the cost of a conventional hard drive with a memory capacity of 500 gigabytes. It is this factor that repels many potential buyers from acquiring this type of drive, and only those people who need maximum performance to work are acquiring them. Here are the prices now for such devices.
Another negative factor of SSDs is their short life. Solid-state drives, in essence, are memory cards with high speed, and a large amount of memory, which means that they can fail after a certain number of overwrites. At the moment, experts from many leading storage companies are trying to solve this problem, but so far it is still relevant.
The most optimal way to use the positive qualities of both technologies for the production of drives is to use two different drives at once - a solid-state drive on which the system and necessary programs will be installed, and ordinary hard a large disk on which files will be stored. Read how to configure Windows on SSD.
HDD vs SSD in laptops
part 2: comparison in real applications
Introduction
So, in we compared the performance of hard drives and SSDs. Let me remind you that in synthetic applications, SSD was much faster. However, the theoretical advantage does not always manifest itself in practice. In this part, we will see how much faster the SSD is in everyday work and, most importantly, should you try to replace your hard drive with a new-fashioned drive.
Comparison of clean and working system performance
However, since we are talking about “real” life, we will start with one interesting aspect, namely, comparing the performance of a clean system and a system with large quantity installed programs. It is no secret that a freshly installed system without installed programs always works very quickly, and tests are removed on such systems. But we work on completely different systems: in which many applications are open, there are resident programs and modules, and the OS itself is far from ideal. I tried to simulate such a system and compare how much the performance of the test participants will be worse in it.
For comparison, the results from the preliminary run were taken, when I determined which applications to install and how to remove tests. Therefore, the system turned out to be slightly different in terms of software composition, respectively, the test results may slightly differ from the ones given below, in the main testing. Measurements were taken on a Seagate 5400.6 disc.
Let me remind you how the numbers came out. At the start, the time from turning on the laptop was measured (i.e. the BIOS test time was included in it, this time is always 4 seconds) until the blue welcome screen appears, the desktop appears, the hourglass next to the cursor disappears and, finally, the time when the system stops working actively with the hard drive. Therefore, the results indicate four numbers.
Upon exiting hibernation, we measured the time from the start of the system until the Welcome sign and a window with the image of the user icon appear, and we completed the measurement when the system stopped working actively with the hard drive.
When you go into sleep mode and turn off, everything is simple - the time is measured from pressing a button on the screen to the moment when the laptop turns off (the indicators go out).
The test was carried out in the following order - the system turns on, then enters sleep mode, wakes up from it, and turns off. This was done two to three times and then two more passes after removing other tests.
The scatter of data was everywhere, and somewhat strange. So, for example, when measuring the time it went into sleep mode for the first time, it was 13 seconds, then about 10-11. As a rule, the time of others for measurements also fell a little, for example, the start for the first time - 1.03, the second and further - 57 seconds. By the way, in cases where the results are unstable, I tried to give the most different figure in brackets. I emphasize that these are the most different from the average results.
I also remind (I already talked about this in the first part) that Windows 7 is better optimized in terms of working with a hard disk. After the desktop appears, you can work with the system, although it continues to load data from the disk. XP in this situation is almost uncontrollable, the "seven" responds adequately to commands, although it takes them a little longer. It is the same with exiting sleep mode: although the system continues to work with the disk for a long time, it can still be used anyway.
So, let's see how the system performance will change after it is delivered a large number of applications, including applications with resident modules (antivirus, Nokia software, etc.). By the way, the partition was heavier from them - from about 17 GB (pure Windows 7) to 32.5 GB.
Start has become slower by an average of 10 seconds, but the disk spins for a very long time - two minutes instead of one. Seven is able to optimize the boot process, unlike XP, which tries to download "all at once" and goes crazy (this is just a textbook case when the disk is working, but the data transfer from it is minimal).
Going into hibernate is predictably longer: there are quite a lot of programs that I installed that use different agents and resident modules, plus, they probably just clutter up the system. Nevertheless, the difference is impressive - the system falls asleep twice as long. The completion of work has also become longer - after all, it is necessary to send a command to all resident programs to close and wait for an answer. I want to pay attention that during the closing of programs a window did not appear, that the system cannot stop one or another program, everything was closed by itself. In my opinion, this difference is critical, because all this time you have to wait until the system finishes working to assemble the laptop. 10 seconds - stand up and collect the rest of the things, 31 - stand up, pack up and wait twenty seconds.
Thus, a clean system performs basic actions somewhere twice as fast as a working one. The difference is especially noticeable when you put the system from scratch, and then you put applications on top of it. According to my feelings, various kinds of optimizations (defragmentation, transferring data to the beginning of the disk, etc.) help a little, but it is difficult to make a significant difference. There is a more radical way: manually prohibit the start of some programs and modules of the operating system, then the boot time will be reduced.
File copy speed
Transferring and copying files is perhaps one of the main tasks, where you can clearly see how fast a particular drive is. In addition, one of the most noticeable: here most often the user sits in front of the laptop and waits for the copying to be completed. In addition, these figures can indirectly assess the speed of downloading programs. The data is taken from the main tests of the Seagate 5400.6 disk. Hereinafter, C and D mean the partitions on the disk.
| Clean system | Working system | |
|---|---|---|
| D-C movie | 27 (25.28) s | 26 s |
| C-D movie | 31 s | 28 (24 and 32) s |
| D-C Documents | 1 min 00 s (52, 1.06) | 1 min 22 s |
| C-D Documents | 1 min 02 s (58, 1,04) | 1 min 40 s (1.36, 1.44) |
| D-C Archives | 27 (25, 30) s | 35 s |
| C-D Archives | 28 (26, 29) s | 42 s |
| The copier. 4.7 GB | 3 min 23 s | 3 min 31 s |
| Unzipping | 2 min 10 s (2.04, 2.18) | 2 min 17 s (3.08) |
| Erase with C | 12 min 33 s | 44 min 15 s |
| Erase with D | 21 min 31 s | 42 min (16 m 41 s) |
Let me remind you that resident programs, including antivirus, are launched in the working system. The movie (a single file) was copied almost exactly the same, when copying archives, the difference is already noticeable, for documents the difference is even more noticeable. Moreover, a difference appeared on the working system from where and where the files are copied, it is also noticeable for all schemes. Conclusions about the process of unzipping so far will not do, because very large scatter on the working system.
Finally, a very strange and incomprehensible situation with erasing files. In this situation, it is difficult for me to draw conclusions, below we look at the results of other participants. Moreover, the situation was repeated, but with incomprehensible twists, sometimes erasing took 20 minutes, sometimes 30. Explorer erases everything quickly, in seconds.
Comparison of hard drives and SSDs in performing work tasks
Well, let's see how the participants of our testing behave in real applications, and whether the SSD will be able to maintain its advantage over hard drives.
Create and deploy a disk image
As a first test, I could not resist and took what I had to do when testing - creating and deploying archived images of a disk partition. The test is performed outside the operating system, plus archiving ... In general, let's see who is faster here.
| SSD Corsair X128 | HDD 7200.2 | HDD 5400.6 | |
|---|---|---|---|
| Clean: Deployment | 5 min 59 s | 15 min 20 s | 15 min 30 s |
| Clean: archiving | 6 min 36 s | 12 min 24 s | 15 min 44 s |
| Work: Deployment | 10 min 14 s | 21 min 26 s | 21 min 06 s |
| Work: archiving | 11 min 45 s | 21 min 08 s | 28 min 40 s |
7200.2 is a little faster than 5400.6, forging ahead for some reason during archiving. SSDs are twice as fast as hard drives. Particularly well he is given the deployment of a clean system, here he is almost three times faster.
Starting, turning off the system, as well as leaving and exiting sleep mode
Now let's see how much time it takes to start and shut down the operating system on various media. For some reason, many people consider the system’s start time to be the most important indicator. It seems to me that these are relics of the times when people worked in the office at stationary computers and turned them off at night (however, this practice is still common). Indeed, standby and sleep modes are not needed in this case, the shutdown speed is unimportant, because by starting the shutdown process you can go home. Only the loading time remains, because Having come to work and starting the computer, you have to wait until solitaire can be decomposed.
When it comes to laptops, and specifically about working with them, things are a little different. I personally turn off the laptop about once every two weeks, when the system starts to behave badly from constant euthanasia and hibernation. And then, more often than not “I rebooted the laptop”, but “the laptop rebooted” (and goodbye the data from running applications) In all other cases, I put the laptop into standby mode (when it is working on the network) or in sleep mode (if it is running on battery power, so as not to waste it). Accordingly, for me, the time to enter sleep mode and exit from it is more important. In addition, this mode has two important advantages over shutdown: firstly, the system starts much faster, and secondly, everything desired applications already open, and the work stands exactly in the place where you finished the last time. This is very convenient and saves significantly more time than switching from hard drives to SSDs.
However, our article is just about comparing them, and this is what we will do. To begin with, let's compare how a clean system started here.
When you start the SSD system is much faster. Moreover, as I already noted, the indicator for accessing the disk does not light up all the time (unlike the HDD), i.e. SSD is not a bottleneck, the system takes some time to "digest" the data. The first time he failed for unknown reasons, the rest of the time the system started in the same time - 24 seconds. SSD is faster in other disciplines, somewhere significant, somewhere not very, if we assume that a third is "not very".
In the struggle of the disks, the 7200.2 finally pulled forward a bit. As you can see, with it the system will start and exit hibernation a little bit faster. Moreover, the advantage is stable, albeit small - you will save 2-4 seconds.
Let's see what happens if you use a working system.
Immediately make a reservation that means “long” - this is more than two and a half minutes. Feels like in different cases this time was somewhere from three and a half to five minutes. But disk activity is almost unaffected.
Hard drives go very close, differences in performance are impossible to notice. Quite possible, new hard 7200 rpm drive will give slightly better results, but how much? Give me a sec? Moreover, the scatter of results sometimes reached 5-6 seconds. That is, as you can see, on a working system the difference in disk performance is leveled. Perhaps it will manifest itself in some specific tasks (they say that in some cases, encoding a video disc is very important), but when performing standard tasks, the difference in numbers is insignificant.
The SSD starts up quickly, goes into hibernation quickly (plus, which is important, while the system writes data to go into hibernation, the laptop can already be collected in a bag, no need to wait), it turns out ... the numbers are not much faster, but to me it also seemed that the system works faster with it. Plus, if the hard drive is spinning constantly and you can already hear a crunch from work, then with SSD data is read in portions and with pauses. Shutting down the system is about the same everywhere, but I think that this process is not so much dependent on the disk subsystem.
We bring all the data into a single table. For each drive, the first column is a clean system, the second is a working one.
| SSD Corsair X128 | HDD 7200.2 | HDD 5400.6 | ||||
|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| Start | 22-24-24 (21-53-53) | 26-30-54 | 32-43-53 (± 2) | 33-50-2,06 | 42-50-57 | 35-50-1,50 |
| Hibernation | 13 | 24 | 18 | 37 (30, 38, 39) | 17 | 36 (45) |
| Exit hibernation | 17 (from 15 to 22) | 18-20-1m + | 19-21-44(1,06) | 21-28-long | 20-21-55 | 20-24-long |
| Shutdown | 8 (6-9) | 19 | 14 | 23 (22, 17, 28) | 12 | 22,5 |
Everywhere, the time has doubled. Moreover, it is twice - regardless of whether a small or large initial value. Therefore, if you want to get the fastest system possible, you need to not only upgrade the drives, but also pay attention to optimizing the system itself, and most importantly, select applications that will work. It is much cheaper and also can bring good dividends.
File Copy Tests
Well, let's move on to the most, in my opinion, interesting tests - tests for copying data. We are interested in these tests for two reasons: firstly, this is the case when the speed of the disk subsystem determines the time spent, and secondly, based on these data, you can indirectly determine how quickly applications will start and files open: after all, these are also operations read from disk. They can be used to evaluate the speed of disks and SSDs in daily mode when they, for example, launch an application or open a file.
Let me remind you that files were copied from one partition to another, i.e. the disk read and wrote data.
| SSD Corsair X128 | HDD 7200.2 | HDD 5400.6 | |
|---|---|---|---|
| D-C movie | 9 (7, 11) s | 35 (32, 42) s | 26 s |
| C-D movie | 7 s | 25 (25, 30) s | 28 (24 and 32) s |
| D-C Documents | 26 (24, 30) s | 1 min 19 s | 1 min 22 s |
| C-D Documents | 28 (23, 30) s | 1 min 40 s | 1 min 40 s (1.36, 1.44) |
| D-C Archives | 8 (7, 11) s | 32 s | 35 s |
| C-D Archives | 14 (12, 16) s | 28 s | 42 s |
| Copy 4.7 GB | 1 min 20 s (1.14, 1.31) | 4 min 41 s * | 3 min 31 s |
| Unzipping | 1 min 20 s (1.01-1.55) | 3 min 45 s ** | 2 min 17 s (3.08) |
| Erase with C | 24 *** s | n / a | 44 min 15 s *** |
| Erase with D | 21 *** s | 5 min 06 s *** | 42 min (16 min 41 s) ** |
* This is from D to C. C to D is copied for 3.45
** This is on C. On D, it is unzipped for 5.11.
*** Explorer erases everything in a second or two
Honestly, I don’t know why such numbers were obtained when deleting files at 5400.6. Moreover, the results are jumping very significantly. I have an idea that the software (for example, antivirus) is to blame, but, on the other hand, the system is identical for all drives. Also, I could not explain why the 7200.2 copy is faster from C to D, and 5400.6 the opposite. Finally, it is not clear why such a difference in copying archives from SSD.
In general, it can be seen that for all drives, the speed depends on the size of the files, although the SSD has almost no difference between the movie and the set of archives (only a strange dependence has appeared on where it is copied). The closer the reading and writing process is to linear, the higher the speed. In absolute terms, the SSD drive leads by a wide margin: it is most often about three to four times superiority. Everything that is called "flies." In the most difficult category, a set of documents, the gap is even more significant.
By the way, since we are talking about comparison, note that it copies a large volume of 5400.6 much faster, almost for a minute. Yes, and unzipping it happens on average faster (although when unzipping, time jumped a lot). In copying files 7200.2 could not go forward, although I counted on it.
However, the circuits under consideration have a peculiarity: data is read from the disk and then written to it right there - from one partition to another. But what if you look at a cleaner case: the data is only being read or only being written? For this we have created virtual disk in the computer’s random access memory and check how different the numbers are when working with the obviously very fast RAM drive.
Figures are given in the format film / archive / documents
| SSD Corsair X128 | HDD 7200.2 | HDD 5400.6 | |
|---|---|---|---|
| D -\u003e RAM | 4/4/20 s | 17/24/40 s | 12/25/44 s |
| RAM -\u003e C | 6/13/23 s | 7/7/32 s | 5/7/25 s |
| Del ram | 20 s | 19 s | n / a |
The results of copying data from a virtual disk to a physical one suggest the darkest suspicions: is writing stable faster than reading? It seemed to me that this does not happen. Moreover, in this test the SSD even loses 5400.
If we compare the data with the plate above and accept (well, all of a sudden) that caching has nothing to do with it, we get funny data: how much faster is it to first copy the entire file to random access memoryand then burn to disk compared to just copying from disk to disk. A movie on 5400.6 using a virtual disk was copied in 12 + 5 \u003d 17 seconds (i.e., it was completely read at first and then completely recorded), and when it was copied from section D to section C, it took 26 seconds, i.e. . we lost 9 seconds out of 26. When copying documents, the difference is generally more than two times. I would suggest that this difference is due to the fact that the disks “drive heads” back and forth when reading and writing. It remains to understand why the SSD in the scheme with copying through a virtual disk is also twice as fast, it seems to have nothing to reposition.
Well, on this we complete the study of the speed of copying files. Let's look at another aspect where it is very important for us how fast our drive is. Namely, the installation and operation of applications.
Install and launch applications
So, let's see how big the difference is in everyday work, namely, in such tasks as installing and running programs. In principle, I tried to find on the one hand applications that are used relatively frequently, and on the other hand, large packages where the installation time difference is significant, and which require a relatively long time for breakfast. As a reminder, readers can offer their test application options.
| Installation | SSD Corsair X128 | HDD 7200.2 | HDD 5400.6 |
|---|---|---|---|
| Batch installation | 2 min 23 s | 6 min 13 s | n / a |
| Acronis | 2 min 31 s | 2 min 45 s | n / a |
| Zonealarm | 1 min 03 s (2,13) | 2 min 05 s (2.26) | n / a |
| Adobe | 4 min 31 s | 12 min 41 s | n / a |
| Cyberlink | 1 min 40 s | 3 min 10 s | n / a |
| Office 2007 | 3 min 32 s (3.07) | 4 min 55 s | n / a |
| Crysis warhead | 24 minutes | 28 min 53 s (31.10) | 34 min 50 s (37.58) |
| Hawx | 4 min 13 s (4.23) | 9 min 08 s (10.52) | 08 min 24 s (10.49) |
Since most of the tests on 5400.6 did not start, the comparison will go mainly between one hard drive and an SSD. In general, as we see, the advantage of SSD is two to three times. True, there are some exceptions, for example, Acronis was delivered in about the same time, and the difference when installing Office is not so great. Either when installing these applications, working with the disk does not play a significant role, or the application is installed so that the SSD works inefficiently. Pay attention to the games. When installing Crysis Warhead, the difference is small, moreover, there are also very strange places among hard drives. But HawX demonstrates an almost classic scheme.
Let's look at the launch of applications. In other materials, I will once again try to test the disks in this discipline already on a working system. However, on the new system everything starts easily.
| SSD Corsair X128 | HDD 7200.2 | HDD 5400.6 | |
|---|---|---|---|
| MS Word 2007 | 1-2 s | 7 s | n / a |
| MS word + 4 MB file | 3-4 s | 14+ s | n / a |
| Helium | 11 (15) s | 26 s | n / a |
| Firefox | n / a s | 16 s | n / a |
| Acrobat start | 3 s | 5 s | n / a |
| Xnview index | 1.25 s | 1.29 s | n / a |
| Helium index | n / a | 24 s | 24 s |
As you can see, in most cases the advantage of SSD is preserved. Nevertheless, we will continue testing from the point of view of the speed of applications and we invite readers to make suggestions: what exactly and in what modes to test.
conclusions
Well, let's move on to the conclusions, and see who leads in which categories.
Speed
The main conclusion: in the vast majority of cases, SSDs are much faster than traditional hard drives. The advantage is two to three times - this is a lot, the gap is simply huge. Thus, the results of synthetic testing were generally confirmed, although there the advantage of SSDs was even more significant. However, this is normal: operating system and many other factors contribute, smoothing the difference in speed various types drives.
When applied in real life and in real-life tasks, SSD, as can be seen above, gives a significant gain. So big that you do not need measurements: it is very clearly visible and "by eye". Applications run and run faster, the operating system also accelerates significantly. Transferring the system to SSD, you immediately feel that it began to respond much faster than before. True, there is a relative minus: if earlier it was possible to include, for example, copying and go to do other things, now it ends too quickly for you to be able to switch. I personally immediately noticed that the system quickly began to go into hibernate and much faster - to leave it. Moreover, the difference is visible, as they say, with the naked eye. Launching applications has become faster, but "catching" is not so simple, because for the most part, they started work quickly enough before.
In general, if the speed of work is critical for you, and all other considerations (see below), including the ultra-high price, are not significant, then the SSD will eliminate one of the known bottlenecks in the system.
The size
As for the size, the SSD loses a lot in absolute numbers. At the moment, even 128-gigabyte models cost a lot of money, in addition, the price very much depends on the capacity: the more space, the more expensive (and much more expensive) the drive. At the same time, a 500-gigabyte hard drive can be purchased very inexpensively.
But do you need a lot of space? In principle, 128 gigabytes should be enough for a working system, especially if you have home computer or external hard a disk where you can drop archives and multimedia data. Well, if your work is not connected with something resource-intensive: for example, active video editing. Several working applications, a text archive, a mail database, some music and no (well, or just a little bit) games and movies. And when buying a drive with a capacity of 64 GB, you need to prepare for the saving mode. When testing OS with installed applications already occupied 35 GB, and at the same time I did not put everything that I wanted. There will be very little space left for work.
If we are talking about a home multimedia laptop, and even the only one (i.e. without external media for the archive), then the SSD is definitely not suitable: its capacity is quickly lost. In this case, the SSD will bring a speed increase, but you will have to have an additional external hard drive to store data. However, I venture to suggest that for most home users the use of SSDs is simply redundant.
Reliability
Another huge plus SSD: increased reliability in everyday work. After all, it is insensitive to shock and vibration, and if you often carry a laptop with you, shock resistance is a huge plus. True, I was lucky with laptops - despite repeated drops in none of them, the drive failed. But all the laptops I had had hard drive protection, usually with an accelerometer that shuts it down when it crashes - this could play a role. But external drive I dropped it once (unsuccessfully pulled the wire), after which a faulty area appeared on it. But he worked fine after that. However, this is my personal example, stories, when after the fall laptop hard the disk stopped working or lost some of the data on the Internet a lot.
The SSD has another operational plus - you don’t have to worry about not shaking the laptop. For example, when a laptop goes into hibernate (and at that time he actively writes to a disk), you can already close the lid and pack it in a bag. On laptops with a hard drive, doing so is highly discouraged - you can disable it.
However, it was not in vain that I made a reservation about everyday work: after all, the long-term reliability of SSDs is in question. Cheap first-generation SSDs (on the same EEE PCs) are already starting to slowly fail. I think that expensive and newer SSDs will last longer, but how much? Unlike hard drives with their hard-to-predict mechanical deterioration, SSDs have well-defined aging criteria associated with burning to disk.
Price
The most difficult aspect, because modern fast SSDs are very expensive. About 3-4 times more expensive than a hard drive, which is also three times more capacious. Those. how much faster, so less and just as expensive. Is the game worth the candle? In my opinion, it is worth it if you are actively working with a laptop. The higher speed of the laptop allows you to save precious minutes of life and nerve cells that are wasted on shouting “Why is it all that slows down somehow ?!”. Do not forget about the great reliability of the drive and data safety. In this sense, for an operating system, an SSD is able to make work more comfortable, and the increased reliability of the drive is also worth something. As for general and home use, it is worth acquiring an SSD if you are willing to put up with the difference in price: performance will pleasantly surprise you.
