An Introduction
SSDs have recently emerged as the recent to-get item, especially for power-users. The drives spend non-volatile NAND flash storage, and unlike hard disk drives, which require a mechanical arm that reads and writes data to a magnetic platter, SSDs have no spellbinding parts; thus, they are distinguished faster at reading and writing data. Not only that but also, SSDs don't effect the annoying popping or clicking sounds that hard drives effect, are more durable, and consume less power than HDDs. So, why haven't consumers adopted SSDs then?
Unfortunately, the three main problems when it came to buying an SSD, are small storage location, high note, and outrageous reliability. When SSD's were first introduced, prices were sky-high; $500 could only pick up you 60GB of storage or so, while for less than $100, you could pick up 5-10x more storage buying an HDD. Furthermore, not only were prices high, but there were lots of problems with SSD drive failures and performance degradation, where the drive would accumulate slower and slower over time and the write speeds would be eventually humdrum. Even worse, sometimes, drives would objective outright fail for no reason, making SSDs a no-no, especially in the business world.
Fortunately, most of the issues have been ironed out. Prices have fallen, storage region has gone up, and early manufacturer issues with SSDs have mostly been solved. And clearly, the many benefits of SSDs now outweigh their shortcomings. Why else has Apple decided to do SSD storage into their Macbook Airs? SSD's are clearly ready for the prime time, and completely prick the bottleneck in unique day computers.
genuine world test data
So, now to my argument that SSDs are the best upgrade the average consumer can originate in their laptop. Let's stare at some test data and look what a exiguous SSD can do to a laptop. The first thing that a PC user has to do is install software on their PC. Already, we survey that SSDs have a famous advantage with this task. Installing a copy of Windows 7 on the Crucial C300 SSD only took 1165sec, while on a 7200rpm WD Scorpio shaded, the install took a elephantine 200sec longer. Booting Windows with the SSD took 22.3s, while with the Scorpio gloomy took 32.5s - almost 50% slower. File copy performance results are similar, with the Crucial C300 SSD taking 105s, while the WD drive took 165s; another 50% increase in rush over the HDD. And finally, battery life takes a astronomical improvement, with the laptop with the C300 SSD netting 7.25 hours of battery life, while the laptop with the WD dusky drive only lasted 6.5 hours. hold in mind that we're comparing a budget SSD to a performance HDD; most consumers would glance an even more drastic performance increase upgrading from an HDD to an SDD. And of course, now we have to seek at note. The Crucial C300 SSD costs about $100 for 64GB of storage, while the WD sad costs $60 for 320GB of storage. So basically, you're sacrificing some hard drive spot for insane performance that reflects on handsome remarkable all tasks that someone performs in a day - booting up Windows, installing software, starting applications, etc...
Two laptops to customize
Now, let's search for at the customization process and why consumers should settle an SSD over any other performance upgrade in a laptop. Many times, consumers are confused by what to upgrade when customizing their laptop. Dell, HP, Apple, and other major manufacturers haven't made the going any easier either, as they offer runt explanation to the many different upgrades that can be had on a PC. Let's discover at the Dell XPS 15 first and then, the 15-inch Macbook Pro as an example.
The sinful ticket of the Dell is $800 and it starts off with an i5-2410, Nvidia GeForce GT 525M, 4GB RAM, and a 500GB 7200RPM HDD. The average consumer views processor performance and RAM as the two most distinguished things to upgrade in a laptop, but au contraire, the SSD is clearly the best upgrade. So let's rob a look; I could exhaust $300 to upgrade to the i7-2720QM processor, which gives 2x the processor performance, and upgrade the RAM to 8GB of DDR3 for $120. And you know what, what a extinguish of money for the 95% of consumers, who wouldn't be able to gawk the incompatibility between the i5 and the i7, as well as the 4GB to 8GB upgrade. Even a power user would be hard pressed to gaze the disagreement performing the everyday tasks such as web browsing, word processing, and watching videos. Honestly, I've always been a proponent of a well-balanced laptop (thus, my affinity for the AMD Llano APU), as a well-balanced laptop gives the best performance in everyday tasks. So it makes the most sense to open by upgrading the HDD to an SSD. Even though it's a $600 upgrade, it's the best $600 upgrade you can acquire on the XPS 15, aside from going to the Nvidia GT 540M for gaming. On the Mac, things are a similar affair. The 256GB SSD is also a $600 upgrade, and in lieu of a processor upgrade and graphics card upgrade, it's definitely worth it.
Reasons why the SSD is the best upgrade
Why you might ask is the SSD the best upgrade on both PCs? Well first of all, the average user is immediately going to stare a dissimilarity. Booting up, the SSD is going to be twice as mercurial. Opening apps is going to be instantaneous. Everything is fair going to feel great, worthy snappier with the SSD - so noteworthy so that the average consumer will easily recognize a inequity. An SSD is so worthy faster than a normal HDD that when I compared the speeds of a Macbook Air (with an SSD) to a Macbook Pro (with a normal HDD), the Macbook Air felt grand faster, despite its lack of RAM and dumb, ULV processor. When a $1000 machine feels remarkable faster than a $2,200 machine, you know something's infamous.
But you might point out $600 is really expensive; and for less storage too. Well, external HDDs are well-kept cheap now and for $50, you can probably regain an extra 500GB to set all of your photos and videos on, while keeping the OS and programs on the SSD. Another point of contention is the GPU, and as we all know, laptop GPU's are very underpowered compared to their processors. But remember, most consumers aren't going to sight a inequity between a 520M compared to a 540M or a 6490M compared to a 6750M; instead, they're going to see the mighty snappier performance that you can accept from an SSD.
Conclusion
Clearly, the SSD is the upgrade to have now, for both consumers and power-users. The performance benefits are unbiased too hard to turn away nowadays; honest peer at the 2011 Vaio Z with its 14 second boot time into Windows 7. And if you're really hurting from the extra stamp, remember that manufacturers always inflate the impress of the SSD upgrades by a lot, so buying on Newegg and installing the drive yourself makes SSDs an even better option. And of course, for those who need more station, an external HDD is the contrivance to go, as it offers lots of area for cheap, so buying say a 128GB SSD would build you about $300.
