Solid-State Storage Disks Are Rapidly Replacing HDDs: 10 Reasons Why

Solid-State Storage Disks Are Rapidly Replacing HDDs: 10 Reasons Why
Published: Nov 5, 2010
Updated: Feb 2, 2021
2 minute read
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Solid-State Storage Disks Are Rapidly Replacing HDDs: 10 Reasons Why

Solid-State Storage Disks Are Rapidly Replacing HDDs: 10 Reasons Why

by Chris Preimesberger


No Moving Parts

2

Nothing moves, so nothing can break, which is a big advantage in any computing device.


Way Faster Read/Write Times

3

Because the data on the SSD is all available at any given time and doesn’t need anything to spin up to deliver it, this is the second key reason why solid-state represents the future.


Drives Can Take More Punishment

4

By their very nature, SSD drives can take a much higher impact than an HDD and be able to work another day.


SSDs Are Embedded More Efficiently

5

Since they come in various sizes and don’t have machinery to take up valuable room within the drive compartment, SSDs can be wedged into places HDDs can’t to handle jobs such as digital sensors.


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Storage Densities Continue to Rise

6

Improvements in NAND flash capacities are announced regularly, as often as once or twice per year. And there’s no end in immediate sight.


Lower Power Requirements

7

No moving parts means less electricity needed to run the drive. Ultra-low-power SSDs are starting to become more common in the product stream.


Much Less Cooling Required

8

HDDs require their own fans in laptops, desktops and servers. SSDs get warm, too, but most often do not need fans.


Reliability Has Improved

9

Enterprise NAND flash’s durability and load-balancing properties (so that often-used sectors don’t wear out before the disk itself is done) have improved in quantum leaps in only the last few years, thanks to R&D from the industry as a whole along with improved fabrication methods.


Smaller Carbon Footprint

10

The less mechanical action, the less heat and CO2 go into the atmosphere.


Prices Are Coming Down

11

There is a slow, but sure downward trend in the overall market, and this will become as important as anything else in the continued adoption of SSD in IT systems.

Chris Preimesberger

Chris J. Preimesberger is Editor Emeritus of eWEEK. In his 16 years and more than 5,000 articles at eWEEK, he distinguished himself in reporting and analysis of the business use of new-gen IT in a variety of sectors, including cloud computing, data center systems, storage, edge systems, security and others. In February 2017 and September 2018, Chris was named among the 250 most influential business journalists in the world (https://richtopia.com/inspirational-people/top-250-business-journalists/) by Richtopia, a UK research firm that used analytics to compile the ranking. He has won several national and regional awards for his work, including a 2011 Folio Award for a profile (https://www.eweek.com/cloud/marc-benioff-trend-seer-and-business-socialist/) of Salesforce founder/CEO Marc Benioff--the only time he has entered the competition. Previously, Chris was a founding editor of both IT Manager's Journal and DevX.com and was managing editor of Software Development magazine. He has been a stringer for the Associated Press since 1983 and resides in Silicon Valley.

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