What is the advantage of SSD vs. regular hard drive?
1732054
Speed! The regular portable hard drives are usually quite a bit slower than desktop drives due to power constraints. This means they are usually slower RPM drives and the moving parts means lag. The SSD has no moving parts and in this drive in particular, it runs on a USB 3/Thunderbolt buss. I can transfer a 5GB file in seconds as opposed to a mechanical drive.
1732055
A regular hard drive is essentially a spinning metal disk that rotates under a head that reads/writes the data. Generally speaking the faster the disk spins, the faster the data access. SSD stands for Solid State Drive. It has no motor or spinning disk and is composed primarily of memory chips. The advantage of SSD is mainly that it is usually faster to read/write data than a regular hard drive and it is more reliable due to the fact that it does not have all the mechanical components of a regular hard drive (e.g. motor, spinning disk ...).
1732056
The main advantages of an SSD (solid state disk) vs a regular hard drive are speed and durability as well as being quieter (silent). In general the speed is much improved so that starting your computer, loading applications, and even just moving around the file system will be noticeably faster and feel snappier. Second, because SSDs lack moving parts, they are more resistant to damage from dropping or physical shock. This makes them great for cell phones and laptops. The disadvantages of SSDs are that they cost significantly more per GB than a conventional hard disk. Also they typically are sold in smaller sizes (because of the increased cost as well as lower information density). Combined, this means that for the same price you can get improved speed, durability, and noise by moving to an SSD, but typically end up with significantly less space then you would have if you bought a regular hard drive of the same cost.
1732057
A regular harddrive reads and writes about about 80 megs per second, this drive does it at around 400 mps. Its really impressive, but you need to make sure both the drive and the computer its connected to have SSDs and thunderbolt to take advantage of the speed.
1130508
I agree with Eric. I always thought the SSD was just there as a disk cache and that appears to be the way it is treated. It works and it is fast. Take a look in Control Panel at "System" and then "Device Manager" and then "Disk Drives" and you will see the SSD listed separately from the hard disk drive. (I'm running Win 8.1)
474694
It takes a few weeks for it to really speed up your work because it "learns" which programs you use the most then stores them on the ssd for faster access. If you really want to speed up your machine you can add RAM too.
2170845
The SSD isn't a typical storage drive. It is used to save the windows state on shut-down so the computer boots faster. You can not save programs to it or access in the typical manner. The OS is installed on the 500gb drive along with all programs and files. I am an IT person and this is still an extremely fast computer even for the OS not being on the SSD.
705282
Caching is a way to improve your systems performance. It copies some of the files from your most used files to this SSD drive for quick access, and since an SSD is much quicker than your HHD it allows your system to perform more quickly. This SSD can be used this way or you can use it as a normal drive. WARNING this drive is very small in size, If you put your windows on this drive it will take up most of it. I put windows 8.1 and Linux on it and this just about filled it. The advantage is the it loads my operation system fast and the rest is used as virtual memory to allow my PC to operate quickly and the I used a 1TB HHD for my normal storage. Caching is a way to improve your systems performance. It copies some of the files from your most used files to this SSD drive for quick access, and since an SSD is much quicker than your HHD it allows your system to perform more quickly. This SSD can be used this way or you can use it as a normal drive. WARNING this drive is very small in size, If you put your windows on this drive it will take up most of it. I put windows 8.1 and Linux on it and this just about filled it. The advantage is the it loads my operation system fast and the rest is used as virtual memory to allow my PC to operate... » Read More Caching is a way to improve your systems performance. It copies some of the files from your most used files to this SSD drive for quick access, and since an SSD is much quicker than your HHD it allows your system to perform more quickly. This SSD can be used this way or you can use it as a normal drive. WARNING this drive is very small in size, If you put your windows on this drive it will take up most of it. I put windows 8.1 and Linux on it and this just about filled it. The advantage is the it loads my operation system fast and the rest is used as virtual memory to allow my PC to operate quickly and the I used a 1TB HHD for my normal storage. « Show Less
999993
I don't think it would help you much. It works by copying the most used programs to itself to speed up launching those programs. Things like your web browser, email client, word files, etc. If you have those on an SSD, they are already faster. Think of this drive as an extra 32gb of ram, to preload programs to.
799949
I haven't messed with the hdd yet, so I don't know about installing a ssd. The 2 blank memory slots are very easy to access and you can quickly plug in more RAM.
1399338
Ok so there's a few things you need to understand in relation to comparing speeds. First there's no standard read write speeds for hdds my 7200 3tb drive ranges from 72 to 150 MB/s Next plastered drives are hard to compare directly with solid state. Platter drives read faster on the inner tracks compared to the litter tracks. There's also spin - up and spin down time for a platter drive. Now this ssd WILL max out your 3gbs sata2 at about 300 to 380MB/s Of course you look and see oh that's only double. True long read will be about double speed. However, it's those short access small files that'll benefit the most. Ssds have no platter. So no spin speed. They just send as much as the device / interface can handle. They also don't "seek" for data so there's no time loss there. In random reads my ssd is roughly 60x faster over all. But if I'm moving a TB of movies or whatnot. It's not AS remarkably fast but still a 100% better experience.
1819009
Yes, if you put it in an enclosure, but that seems a bit silly when it's best used as the main drive for your OS. Data that is not accessed frequently is best put on a larger and less expensive HDD, while frequently accessed OS files and program installations can be put on a drive like this which will have the largest effect on speeding up a PC.
1969631
I would buy a large external drive. The is much faster than standard hard drives
383562
The general theory is this: The SSD drive is rock solid, reliable, and lightning fast. Therefore, this is generally the boot drive where the operating system and (if you choose) most used software programs reside. The computer boots up super fast, as do the programs (such as MS Word, Outlook, PowerPoint, etc.) you've installed there. The 2 TB hard drive is where you store your files - word docs, music, movies, etc. Since SSD's are generally smaller and way more expensive than traditional hard drives, most people don't populate their computers with all SSD's. It would make the inevitable hard drive "crash" a less frequent thing, but again, it's a cost issue. This hybrid solution is becoming popular because of the reliability of SSD's and fewer blue screens of death since the operating system doesn't reside on a traditional hard drive that is prone to eventual failure. It's easy to back up the 2 TB hard drive - all of those precious pictures, movies, documents - and replace it if it fails without having to reinstall all of your software programs. Hopefully this helps answer your question.
1969627
I use my ssd just for the OS and programs. Data storage such as music and documents I do one an HDD I have both installed internally.
1607450
Pretty sure you won't really see a difference between any of them unless you know exactly what you're looking for i.e. an IT tech. SSD will vastly improve performance over a standard 5400/7200RPM HD. Good luck!
1355657
Still faster. An SSD will almost always smoke an HDD, no matter what RPM speed, simply because there are no moving parts. The weakness is smaller capacity (1TB is HUGE for an SSD) and cost -- much more per GB, though coming down. This should be used in conjunction with a fast HDD. Typically, your operating system goes on the SSD, while your programs and data go on the HDD.
1884275
This model has a 1TB 5400RPM HDD, but also has a free hard drive bay. The first thing I did was buy a 500GB Samsung 840 SDD to boost system performance. I reinstalled windows on the new SSD and only use the 1 TB drive for movies, music, and other media.
1303285
An SSD does not improve gaming quality, even though it raises the overall speed of your system. This article may come in handy to you: http://www.hardocp.com/article/2013/12/10/hdd_vs_ssd_real_world_gaming_performance/1#.U4UCNvm-2Fw
1872483
More storage is always preferred so I'd go with both drives (SSD with the OS so everything is faster and hybrid as a secondary for downloads). An SSD will usually cost more per GB than a hybrid drive but SSD is faster, quiter, more reliable, and less susceptible to damage since there's no moving parts. You can check reviews for the different drives on sites like www.cnet.com to get in-depth information including pros/cons. I have Windows 7 running on the 1GB hybrid drive and it's great!