Category: Geeks r Us
I have heard many terms relating to hard drives. SCSI, ATA, SATA, E-SATA, IDE, P-ATA/PATA SSD, etc. What does all of this mean? From what I gather P-ATA and SATA drives use internal parallel and serial connections, respectively. I believe SSD is solid state drive, similar to compact flash or a flash drive. But other than that, how do they compare as far as speed, data retention and loss, etc? If I heard correctly, solid state drives can only be written to a certain number of times. I read the Wikipedia article and it didn't explain this, or if it did, I didn't understand clearly.
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Hard_disk_drive_interface
You're right. The wikkipedia article was a historian's dream, but explained little to the novice.
Good question.
Hope others chime in here.
Bob
To explain all this would take a book. What is your aim in knowing?
The average computer user need not worry to much about type of drive. What usually matters is capacity, and speed.
SSD's are solid state, meaning they have no moving parts. Think of an SSD like you do a USB key, or a Memory card. It has no moving parts and works on the same concept sort of.
Yes, technically, you can only write an SSD a certain number of times. This is analogous to the eventual degradation of a hard drive through moving parts. Both won't work forever. The major difference between the two types is that, because an SSD has no moving parts, it is much faster to read/write. The problem is that old systems may have problems using a newly-installed SSD because they were designed for hard drive use. If the computer in which you plan to install the SSD runs a relatively new operating system (anything in the last seven years), you won't have this problem.
so tryin to put dos or windows XP on an SSD probably wouldnt' work out. however Windows 7 and 8.exe work wel.
Do you want to know the differences in how the drives work?
Is that what you are after ?
Yes. Basically, I am wondering about speed and which is better. I know that serial and parallel each have their advantages and disadvantages. I'm not sure what IDE is or if it's just an enhanced version of one of the above.
Ide is an older connection for HDD's. best is solid state storage. If you want speed, you for sure want a solid state drive.
I can speak for experience in this department. solid state drives are super fast, and will make any computer shine.
No that doesn't mean go and put an SSD in your 10 year old computer. don't get any ideas tiff. I can hear that mind working already. *laughs*
SSD's are faster due to not moving.
Otherwise the drives that spin are better or worse depending on speed and are marked.
5400RPM and 7200RPM and some even are 8500RPM.
Some have a portion of the drive set aside for backup, like a drive within a drive.
You know quality when the company that build the drive stands behind it with 3 5 and 7 year warrentees. The terms of these matters as well.
The type of drive, other then the SSD doesn't matter, unless you are building the system and need the correct size and conections.
Harddrives do not differentiate just by speed. There are quite a few factor that determine harddrives too. And no, it is not just different names and models and that. I'm just waking up after a night of WWDC but i'll explain later.
you forgot the 10000 RPM drives put out by WD.
I know that Joanne. Smile.
Read my top post.
It takes a lot to explain them completely.
If you are up to it bring it on.
Loved Apples new softwear. Makes me want to buy a Mac.
SSDS are great; i have one in my laptop, wich I can't find, lol. Know it's around the house somewhere. The advantage of an SSD is that since there is no moving parts, if you accidentally drop your laptop, chances are the data will still be retained. However, while SSDS do provide enhancements in speed, they are still quite expensive if you want anything more than 250 GB. Even for a 250 GB, you're looking at about $158 probably, but for a 128 GB SSD, you might be looking at $70 or 90, depending on the brand. These drives are easy to install in a laptop, but not sure about a desktop; because, they're really not made for it, so I would presume you would need like a 3.5 inch tray or something. Speaking of hard drives and computers, will a computer support an infinite amount of storage? How do you know how many hard drives, or TB a computer will support?
Nathan. Might upgrade my system to an SSD for primary storage down the road, but not now. Thinking it won't be until Christmas time.
Hahaha Wayne, what makes you love about the new Apple software? Which i presume, you are talking about OSX 10.10?
SSD can also been install on a desktop. Mac has been doing so for at least couple of years now, and i know a few PC users have been using it too.
Just wonder of wonder, HBoy, do you lost the laptop or the SSD?
how you lose a laptop i'll never know...
I heard that there is actually a way to use a compact flash card as a solid state drive, in order to cut down on the cost. You have to use an enclosure for it. I don't know anything more than that. But I never even considered getting one, to be honest.
Well using a compact flash drive would just be putting your data on it.
Joanne, I loved the new OS for both the computers and the phones/tablets.
I enjoyed the fact you could move from one device to the other, or receive text/calls say on your Mac from the phone when it rings.
I know Android has some of the other features, like remote control of devices, and other company's, but for us, it be good due to Apple's commitment to accessibility across all systems.
Tifi, sure, you can thoriticly use SD card, CF, even USBDrive if you like as a SSD. But that is not how defines a SSD. All the above examples of storrage mediem does not provide you the writing/reading speed that SSD has. For those that uses SSD as their main drive will know that they can boot the OS literary in seconds, but i can't say the same for the other mediem. You can get a 128GB SD (Standard Memory) card and pretend it is a 128GB SSD (Solert state drive), and be fool by thinking that it is the same. As far as CF is concern, well, to be honest, i care about CF just as i care about how much hair my dog gonna shed each day. lol
Never boot up! Just wake up. Put it to sleep. Lol
I wonder how fast the SSD wakes from sleep?
I'm really tempted to ditch my drive in my laptop and add one.
It doesn't make sense from a practical stand point, because my drive is working just fine, and is 650GB ot of 750GB worth of unused space, but still?
it wakes up Instantly.
on this Core I3, I don't even have to wait for the startup sound to finish playing before entering my password. its that good.
I dcan do that with my desktop if I wake it up from sleep. It has a regular drive.
depends on the reading/writing speed of the SSD, but it does wake up instandly, waiting
for you to put on the psw. What you can do wayne, is get a smaller ssd, say 100GB or
something, and use it for os and program purposes only. Then, use your current harddrive
for data. then you no need to spend too much on getting a SSD drive with say 500gb or
something. Thats what i do with my Mac. The SSD on my Mac is pretty much for OS and
softwares onl. The rest is all on the cloud or on external drive or somewhere else. I feel
that, the external drive can be ditch soon too, when $1/10 Cloud plan aaavailable in falls.
lol
Thought about doing that on my desktop, but for the laptop I'd need space, so would need to remove the current drive and use it as external space.
I don't need more space, so. Lol
I might on the desktop though. There is space, and the mother boarde can handle it easily.
I was shopping for a friend a new laptop, and I cane on this page on Dell. It helps you choose the type of hardrive you need, or desire.
Anyway, it describes the type pretty well in plain English.
http://www.dell.com/learn/us/en/19/help-me-choose/hmc-hdd-laptop-consumer?c=us&l=en&s=dhs&cs=19