Laptops and desktops have quite a long life. Most people don't upgrade or buy new PCs every year. People do that for smartphones, but the upgrade cycles are much slower. In fact, many people, in the case of desktops can upgrade multiple aspects of their computer, so you don't need to go for a completely new machine.
If you happen to own a 4-5 year PC or Laptop, and you are thinking that it has become too slow, there are ways to squeeze more life out of it. One sure shot way of achieving this is swapping out your existing hard drive for a solid state drive, which is popularly known as a SSD. Here's why.
SSDs are more reliable
A traditional hard drive spins and has many moving parts. This makes it more susceptible to mechanical faults, especially in case you bump your machine or if your laptop falls. SSDs, because they don't have any moving parts, don't have mechanical failures. This doesn't mean that SSDs can't fail. They can but it is just that the chances of a user losing data are lower with the SSD.
SSDs are speed demons
Modern SSDs can be up to 100 times faster than a traditional hard drive. How is this possible? Well, on a traditional hard drive speed is dependent on where the data is on the read-write heads. It will access data faster the closer it is, but it will take longer if data is further away from the read write heads. On a SSD all parts can be accessed at the same time, this converts to almost instantaneous access. This will result in everything being faster -- boot, data access and file transfers. Basically everything will be faster. That's why Apple ditched the hard drive on the original MacBook Air. Even on Ultrabooks, which have a hybrid storage system, the OS -- Windows is normally installed on the smaller SSD.
If you even get a small 32 GB SSD and install Windows on it and keep your traditional hard drive for data, your experience will be faster. SSD's just offer a higher level of performance.
More battery
SSDs consume less power. So if you swap a SSD for a hard drive on your laptop, chances are your battery life will improve slightly. The same will hold true on a big gaming rig.
No sound
A hard drive, because it has mechanical parts, makes sound. SSDs are totally silent while they are writing or reading data. This means no whirring sound or vibrations from your laptop when you are copying thousand of photos on it.
But one disadvantage...
SSDs are more expensive. They also don't come yet in large memory options that you'll normally get on a hard drive. SSDs currently max out at 2TB and for that too, you'll be basically shelling out a kidney and it will be more expensive than the machine you are upgrading.
However, getting a smaller sized SSDs (something like 64GB or 128GB) makes a lot of sense. In the long run, the benefits just outweigh the cons. You'll be glad when your precious data doesn't disappear because of a hard drive crash.
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