Dan the Computer Man

Your Computer's Best Friend
In-home computer repair in the San Antonio area

Solid State Drive

Storage

Computers contain many independent components for different purposes. The device that stores information in a computer has long been the hard drive. That is where Windows lives (or another operating system), and the programs, as well as your own documents, pictures, or other data files.

Hard drive

Hard drive storage technology is about 60 years old! There have been incredible improvements in speed and storage capacity, but fundamentally, it's still a set of spinning discs like an LP record player with an arm that moves around.

Solid State Drive

A newer type of storage device has emerged to compete with hard drives. A solid state drive does the same job as a hard drive, but has no moving parts. It is much faster than a hard drive.

Initially, SSDs were significantly more expensive than hard drives, and had a fraction of the storage capacity. But the price has fallen and capacity has risen. Today, everyone needs an SSD.

You need an SSD

Today's computers are pretty fast, but when the operating system is stored on a hard drive, that hard drive is the bottleneck. An otherwise great computer is crippled by a hard drive!

If you put 2 computers side by side, and they are identical in every respect EXCEPT that one has a hard drive and the other has an SSD, you will know in seconds which one is which. The SSD will make the computer start up in seconds (usually under 20 seconds), and when you click an icon, the program jumps up immediately.

If you are buying a new computer, you would be wasting your money if you get one without a solid state drive. You need an SSD!