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SSD? Flash? !!!!!!!!!

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I'v only ever had PC's but, as I love my ipad, I am considering crossing to the dark side. But, please can someone explain to me SSD and Flash Drives in relation to Macbook Pros etc.
TIA
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Comments

  • boxst
    boxst Posts: 454 Forumite
    SSD is a solid-state-drive which means that instead of having a disk to spin all the information is stored on chips.

    This makes the computer faster to boot and use and more energy efficient (no moving parts).

    With regards to Macbooks, only the new Retina (very expensive) ones comes with an SSD as standard. Macbook Airs only have SSDs.
  • jayme1
    jayme1 Posts: 2,154 Forumite
    Part of the Furniture Combo Breaker
    the 13 and 15 inch macbook pros use standard 2.5inch hard drives so apples prices for SSDs are very expensive, for a 128GB SSD apple will charge you £160, where you can actually buy a 256GB SSD yourself for £160.
    apple charges £400 for an 256GB SSD, you can buy a 512GB SSD for £400. and if you want a pre fitted 512GB SSD they charge £800

    just to expose that.
  • HGLTsuperstar
    HGLTsuperstar Posts: 1,904 Forumite
    Thanks, but not wanting to go off-track into Apple pricing politics etc, I am clued up on that side of things.
    Back to OP, can anyone explain Flash as opposed to your bog standard say 500GB HD.
    TIA
  • jayme1
    jayme1 Posts: 2,154 Forumite
    Part of the Furniture Combo Breaker
    edited 6 July 2012 at 2:51PM
    SSDs has no moving parts (you can shake them and you can't scratch the platters) and has considerably faster read and write times meaning the computer will start up and shut down faster than using a HDD and any programs will open/close/save much faster.
    Other than that, apart from the GB size and cost, they are exactly the same to the end user.

    SSDs also have a specific read/write cycle life but it's of an order of years in all current SSDs so there's nothing to worry about in that respect either, ie if you take the Crucial M4 that's good for 72TB of total write usage, meaning you would have to write 40GB a day for 5 years before it uses up that 72TB of write life.
  • - HDD's spin [metal platters with a magnetic coating]
    - SSD's don't [the data is stored on interconnected flash memory chips]
    - HDD's are very very slow comapred to SSD's
    - SSD's are about an extra 0 compared to HDDs
    - example a 1T HDD same form factor £90 an SSD about £900
    - a HDD with work on almost anything an SSD must be on an SSD capable MOBO & O/S

    In short SSD's are faster / more rugged / noiseless / etc. Most real world home use is a small £60 SSD as a blisteringly fast C: primary drive with a £60 1T HDD as drive D: for storage, that way you get the best of both worlds on Win7
    Disclaimer : Everything I write on this forum is my opinion. I try to be an even-handed poster and accept that you at times may not agree with these opinions or how I choose to express them, this is not my problem. The Disabled : If years cannot be added to their lives, at least life can be added to their years - Alf Morris - ℜ
  • prowla
    prowla Posts: 13,989 Forumite
    Part of the Furniture 10,000 Posts Name Dropper
    jayme1 wrote: »
    SSDs also have a specific read/write cycle life but it's of an order of years in all current SSDs so there's nothing to worry about in that respect either, ie if you take the Crucial M4 that's good for 72TB of total write usage, meaning you would have to write 40GB a day for 5 years before it uses up that 72TB of write life.
    Surely it depends upon how many times you re-write to a particular block, rather than an average over the whole storage device?
  • prowla
    prowla Posts: 13,989 Forumite
    Part of the Furniture 10,000 Posts Name Dropper
    FYI, I have an SSD drive in my main PC; it was just a straight plugin as you would a SATA hard disk. Mine is 125 GB and the PC boots noticeably faster into Windows that it did before (and it's a lot quieter too!).

    In terms of lifespan, data on any single drive is always at risk.
  • fishybusiness
    fishybusiness Posts: 1,263 Forumite
    I put one in my Macbook, OCZ Vertex Plus. It is a different machine now. Well worth the 90 odd quid.
  • jayme1
    jayme1 Posts: 2,154 Forumite
    Part of the Furniture Combo Breaker
    prowla wrote: »
    Surely it depends upon how many times you re-write to a particular block, rather than an average over the whole storage device?

    it does but SSDs (at least newer ones) are designed to spread the load over all the blocks so no one block will be used an unproportional amount of times (called wear leveling), and SSDs have redundancy built in incase a block fails (bad block replacement) and also for garbage collection.

    an average user would go nowhere near the 40GB write a day, I (I estimate) write about 2GB to my hard drive per day so if I had that Crucial M4 SSD it could potentially last 100 years before a block was 'used up'
  • googler
    googler Posts: 16,103 Forumite
    Part of the Furniture 10,000 Posts Name Dropper Combo Breaker
    jayme1 wrote: »
    ........... and SSDs have redundancy built in incase a block fails (bad block replacement) and also for garbage collection.

    Paraphrased, does this mean it's designed to recognise the bad blocks before they cause the drive to crash, and that it flags the bad blocks as unsuitable for further use? Do they do this fairly reliably?

    Is there a point where, if the bad blocks reach a pre-set limit, the drive says "Enough" ?
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