Should I Upgrade To A Solid State Drive (SSD)?

Upgrading to an SSD Drive (solid state drive) from your old hard drive (HDD) is the best upgrade you can make to your laptop or desktop computer.

Hard drives tend to be among the biggest bottlenecks in computer performance. SSD Drive speeds are extremely fast, meaning using one will make your boot times and application launches faster.

A SSD drive is a hard drive that’s made up of memory chips. It works the same way as a traditional hard disk drive. You wouldn’t even know you’re using an SSD if it wasn’t for the difference in speed. Traditional Hard Drives (HDD’s) store their data on spinning metal platters, and to access your data, a little needle-like component (called the “head”) moves to the data’s position and provides it to the computer. Think of an old record player. An SSD drive has no moving parts, and just reads your data from its memory chips. This makes it much faster.

Here’s how an SSD Drive vs. a Traditional Hard Drive looks inside:

If you’d like to read more about this, here’s a great article at PC Magazine.

You may wonder how long they last. Unlike a traditional hard drive, modern SSD Drives last a very long time. The majority of them will become outdated before they die, and you’ll probably have bought a new computer by then.

How Much an SSD Drive Speeds Up Your Computer Boot Time and Performance:

Boot times will be significantly reduced, sometimes at fast as 10 seconds!Launching applications, installing programs and opening files can occur nearly instantly.Another Bonus: They are shock proof, so they won’t break if you drop your laptop.

SSD Drives use less electricity, thus increasing your laptop battery life:

In reality, most people can expect about extra hour of battery life, depending on your machine and how you use it. Some get more.

Upgrading to an SSD Drive vs. Buying a New Computer:

If your laptop or desktop PC is getting slow and you’re feeling it’s time for a new PC, stop and think about it. The main thing that fails and slows down your PC is the hard drive. It’s very likely that the rest of your PC is just fine and may last several more years.If you replace the hard drive with a new SSD, it will be faster than most new PC’s because the new ones still come with regular hard drives, unless you spend $1,000 or more. That’s right, an upgrade costing as little as $200 can give you the equivalent of a $1,000 PC!