Which SSD is better to choose and why. Is it worth switching from a hard drive to an SSD? Very short reaction time

An old office machine with a leisurely Celeron G530 at its base was chosen as the platform. An SSD will significantly transform such a system. MSI H67MS-E23 (B3) motherboard is equipped with both SATA II and SATA 3.0 ports. Thus, the main criterion for the experiment was met: the identity of the stand. The complete config looks like this:

• Processor: Intel Celeron G530, 2.4 GHz
• Motherboard: MSI H67MS-E23 (B3)
• RAM: DDR3-1333, 2x 4 GB
• Drives: Patriot Ignite PI240GS325SSDR, WD Blue WD10EZEX
• Power supply: Corsair HX850i, 850 W
• Peripherals: LG 31MU97 monitor
• Operating system: Windows 10 x64

The operating system was installed directly on the drives. Screenshots of the results are stored in the “Testing” gallery.

Experiment

Let's start with synthetics. Then - from tasks close to reality. Often, when comparing SATA II and SATA 3.0, linear read and write performance is cited as the most striking demonstration. Why am I worse? Indeed, in the easiest scenarios for SSDs, the difference between the interfaces is serious. To put it simply - double. Nothing surprising, however, happened. Starting with 16KB blocks, the Patriot Ignite, connected via a SATA 3.0 connector, takes off.

When a PC gamer wonders which tuning options are the most important, besides the obligatory purchase of a powerful graphics card, we give him the following advice: replace your classic hard drive with an SSD drive. Just buy not a SATA-SSD, but a flash drive that transfers data via PCI-Express and uses the NVMe protocol for this.

Such models achieve five times higher data transfer speeds, and this technology practically knows no upper limit. Currently, the market is increasingly filled with similar turbo drives (albeit still quite expensive), so the gamer is faced with the question of whether he is ready to invest a little more money in a significant increase in speed or will give preference to classic, relatively slow SSDs.

Getting ready for a new era Tiny NVMe SSDs like the new Samsung PM971 are also suitable for ultrabooks or tablets - they measure only two centimeters

To replace the HDD, you didn’t have to think about anything special - just buy a drive of the size you need. Over time, everything became somewhat more complicated, since the SATA interface was originally designed to work with the AHCI (Advanced Host Controller Protokol) protocol and the corresponding driver for slow classic drives with spinning magnetic disks.

An unpleasant side effect: the SATA-600 interface allows a maximum data transfer rate of 600 MB/s.

If you look at our rating of SSD drives with the SATA interface, you can see that many models achieve an average data transfer speed (when reading) already above 550 MB/s, and when writing, you can often see 540 MB/s on their “speedometer”. With. Thus, it becomes obvious that this technology no longer has the potential for growth in performance today.

In other words, the SATA interface can become a so-called “bottleneck” for flash drives, which are becoming faster and faster. It's good that new SSDs bypass this speed limit if you use PCIe connectors for connections instead of red SATA cables - that is, use the type of connection that was traditionally used for graphics cards. A single PCIe 3.0 lane can theoretically transfer up to 1 GB/s.

In this test, four such lines were used to connect SSD drives. So this gives a maximum of 4 GB/s - at least in theory. In practice, this figure is not achieved: the highest data transfer speed to date was demonstrated by the latest Samsung 960 Pro with a reading result of 2702 MB/s.

Two different types of connectors

Many SSD manufacturers develop software that analyzes the health of NVMe SSDs. Intel calls it Solid-State Drive Toolbox

Unlike SATA drives, when purchasing a turbo SSD, you should pay attention to the correct choice of its form factor. Fast data storage devices can be produced both in the form of expansion cards inserted into a PCIe connector, and in the form of memory strips that are installed in so-called M.2 slots (see illustration).

This advice is especially relevant for older motherboards, since their M.2 slot can only output the SATA bus for data transfer. Anyone who is assembling a new computer for themselves may not have to worry too much about this issue: motherboards for new processors have M.2 connectors with a PCIe connection and support the new Non-Volatile Memory Express (NVMe) data exchange protocol - this provokes a second turbo. jump.

Unlike models for M.2, SSDs in the form of a card for a PCIe connector may also be interesting for upgrading older systems. However, you should definitely make sure that there is one more free PCIe slot on the motherboard in addition to the one occupied by the graphics card.

And one more small detail may turn out to be very important: of the six SSD drives taken for this test, four have an expansion card form factor, but only three of them support the PCIe 3.0 standard. Kingston HyperX Predator is limited only by PCIe 2.0, which is capable of passing only 500 MB/s through the line.

And while your read and write speeds of 1400 and 1010 MB/s, respectively, will be significantly better than SATA competitors, they won't match the performance of the fastest SSDs. In this case, media that support PCIe 3.0 will also work in the PCIe 2.0 slot, but their speed will be significantly reduced.

Overheated SSDs become slower

We can now expect data transfer speeds in excess of 2.5 GB/s from PCIe SSDs. SSD drives with M.2 interface produced by OCZ are usually supplied with a PCIe adapter. Based on our measurement results, we see it as more than rational to leave the device there. We measured the characteristics of these devices for M.2 and without an adapter, registering slightly worse values: for example, when reading, a speed of only 2382 MB/s was achieved, which is approximately 130 MB/s less than with an adapter.

The Angelbird Wings PX1 PCIe card adapter (about 80 euros) with its own cooling heatsink prevents the Samsung 950 Pro from overheating Reason: The PCIe card adapter has a heat sink plate that allows the SSD drive to cool better. The M.2 version heats up more, and therefore the speed decreases more often. The fact that this phenomenon can be even more noticeable is demonstrated by the results of the Samsung 950 Pro: we measured only 1483 MB/s on average when testing its data transfer speed when reading.

At the same time, the 950 Pro starts more than powerfully and reaches 2500 MB/s, but over time it heats up and the speed rapidly drops. With its 2074 MB/s, the Samsung 960 Pro also has an advantage in speed when writing data, followed by the OCZ RD400 with 1554 MB/s and the Zotac with 1249 MB/s. The last place is Plextor M8Pe (final fifth place) with a result of only 828 MB/s.

For the Samsung 950 Pro, the above statement is also true: it can run faster, but when we loaded it with increased activity during testing, it overheated and switched to a lower speed. Because of this, the average speed remained at only 1143 MB/s. For the 950 Pro we can still explain this behavior, but not in the case of Plextor. The manufacturer equipped its M.2-SSD with a cooling radiator, but not only does it not help the device, but even the opposite: the radiator makes the drive thicker, and it will not fit into every laptop. However, Plextor offers an option without a radiator.

When studying the issue of overheating, the user should take into account that our benchmarks load SSD drives unnaturally heavily. In everyday life, such loads will occur rather rarely. However, for those who want to prevent overheating, it is best to get an adapter like the Angelbird Wings PX1.

Very short reaction time

High data transfer speeds are good for speeding up loading, but the reason why Windows and games run noticeably faster with an SSD drive on a computer is primarily due to the low latency. During testing, we study it during I/O measurements (Input/Output), that is, counting the number of read or write operations performed per second when processing sequential memory blocks. This parameter, the so-called IOPS (Input/Output Operations Per Second), is the missing “ingredient” for a fast PC, which is often heavily loaded.

In this test discipline, the OCZ RD400 drive has an advantage with 43,974 IOPS when writing. When reading, on the contrary, the result of 18,428 IOPS is not even half of the previous one. Our rating leader, Samsung 960, has the same heterogeneity of characteristics: when writing, it reaches 42,175 IOPS, and when reading - only 29,233.

The enviable similarity of the results is demonstrated by Zotac with its approximately 35,000 IOPS (both reading and writing). However, when comparing products, this parameter often has to be combined with others. At the same time, turbo SSDs should soon “break through” the psychologically important mark of 100,000 IOPS.

The Kingston HyperX Predator performed the worst: about 23,000 IOPS when reading and 17,800 when writing means last place, and by a wide margin. The main reason for this is outdated technology, since this SSD still transfers data using the AHCI protocol. The new NVMe access protocol, on the contrary, is optimized for working with SSDs.

The advantages of NVMe manifest themselves primarily when parallelizing processes: the data transfer protocol allows you to work with I/O queues of up to 65,536 commands. The AHCI protocol is limited to only one queue of 32 commands - and this can cause data accumulation under heavy load.

For flash memory in NVMe-SSD, everything is so good, it’s as if there is no latency at all. AHCI

2011 Interface

PCIe Optimized for...

HDD SSD Latency

6 µs 2.8 µs Number of queues

1 65 536 Queue entries

32 65 536 Uncacheable register accesses

9 2 Interrupts

1 2048 Multi-core support

limited

yes Samsung 960 Pro needs only 0.02ms to write data and 0.03ms to read. But the benefits of NVMe don't stop there. In particular, executing a request using the NVMe protocol requires a maximum of two register accesses, while AHCI requires nine. Here you can add support for multi-core systems from NMVe, while AHCI cannot derive any benefit from several CPU cores.

The price of a gigabyte is falling

Currently, SATA-SSD is cheaper than PCIe-SSD. At a price of approximately 22 rubles per 1 GB, you can get such a top-end SSD drive as the Samsung 850 EVO with a capacity of 1 TB. The Samsung 960 Pro we tested with a capacity of 512 GB costs 40 rubles per gigabyte. But even for new ultra-fast drives, prices are gradually decreasing: for example, Plextor M8Pe, the most inexpensive SSD with NVMe support, is the best choice - it is no more expensive than SATA drives.

New NVMe drives also stand out for their service life: they use MLC (Multi Level Cell) flash memory with a relatively high rewrite resource. Samsung even uses its own 3D V-NAND, which promises even longer lifespan. M.2 solid state drives. All test results 1. Intel 750 1200GB (SSDPEDMW012T4X1) Read transfer speed (80%): 100 Write transfer speed (20%): 94.6 Nominal capacity: 1.200 GB Interface: PCIe Overall rating: 98.9 Price/quality ratio: 61 2. Samsung 960 Pro 1TB (MZ-V6P1T0BW) Read transfer speed (80%): 98.3 Write transfer speed (20%): 100 Nominal capacity: 1.024 GB Interface: NVM-Express Overall rating: 98.6 Value for money /quality: 85 3. Samsung 960 Pro 2TB (MZ-V6P2T0) Read transfer speed (80%): 98 Write transfer speed (20%): 98.6 Nominal capacity: 2.048 GB Interface: M.2 Overall rating: 98.1 Price/performance ratio: 84 4. Samsung 960 Pro 512GB (MZ-V6P512) Read transfer speed (80%): 97.1 Write transfer speed (20%): 98.5 Nominal capacity: 512 GB Interface: NVM-Express Overall Score: 97.4 Value for Money: 76 5. Zotac Sonix Gaming Edition 480GB (ZTSSD-PG3-480G-GE) Read Transfer Rate (80%): 97.9 Write Transfer Rate (20%): 90.3 Nominal Capacity : 480 GB Interface: M.2 Overall rating: 96.4 Price/quality ratio: 63 6. Samsung 960 EVO 1TB (MZ-V6E1T0) Read transfer speed (80%): 95.1 Write transfer speed (20%): 98.3 Nominal capacity: 1.024 GB Interface: NVM-Express Overall rating: 95.7 Price/quality ratio: 100 7. Toshiba OCZ RD400 512GB (RVD400-M22280-512G-A) Read data transfer rate (80%): 94.5 Data transfer speed write (20%): 98.9 Nominal capacity: 512 GB Interface: M.2 Overall rating: 95.4 Price/performance ratio: 64 8. Corsair MP500 480GB (F480GBMP500) Read transfer speed (80%): 97.3 Data transfer speed write (20%): 87.8 Nominal capacity: 480 GB Interface: NVM-Express Overall rating: 95.4 Price/performance ratio: 73 9. Patriot Hellfire M2 480GB (PH480GPM280SSDR) Read transfer speed (80%): 97.6 Transfer speed write data (20%): 86.5 Nominal capacity: 480 GB Interface: PCIe Overall rating: 95.4 Price/performance ratio: 89 10. Patriot Hellfire M2 240GB (PH240GPM280SSDR) Read data transfer speed (80%): 97. 3 Write data transfer rate (20%): 86.8 Nominal capacity: 240 GB Interface: NVM-Express Overall rating: 95.2 Price/quality ratio: 85 M.2 solid-state drives. All test results

SSD drives: a review of the best hard drive models and a rating of their features will be of interest to anyone who is interested in long-term storage of their data, and for some reason does not particularly trust online storage.

Technologies for the production of information storage devices do not stand still, and now, in order to buy a hard drive for your computer or laptop, you need to understand how not to miss the choice; besides, SSD drives are still not cheap.

We will tell you what technologies are used by manufacturers of modern solid-state drives, the popularity of which, compared to HDDs, is growing day by day. Before choosing specific model options, it is worth finding out what advantages SSDs have and what to consider when choosing them.

Pros and cons of equipment

The main advantages of SSD:

• high speed of reading and writing data, 2–3 times higher than even the latest HDD models;
• sustainable transmission of information. With a HDD, the speed of data movement varies depending on its volume and location on the disk;
• fast access to data at 0.1 ms;
• high reliability of use due to the absence of moving parts and minimal heating;
• low energy consumption (10 times less than conventional disks);
• light weight, which makes SSD the best option for netbooks and laptops.

Among the disadvantages of the equipment are the high cost and relatively small capacity, although currently the dimensions of SSDs (both physical parameters and the amount of stored information) are almost comparable to standard hard drives.

The file system installed on solid-state drives can also be called a disadvantage: it requires care and optimization, and data deleted from the SDD is extremely difficult to recover, almost impossible.

Another disadvantage is that voltage surges in the electrical network can lead to the burning out of not only the disk controller, but also to the failure of the entire disk. HDDs are also susceptible to this, but to a lesser extent. In any case, to prevent this kind of trouble, you should use a UPS and voltage stabilizers.

Features of choice

Before purchasing a drive, you should pay attention to the following features.

The most important characteristic is SSD capacity – it depends on the needs and financial capabilities of the user.

The price of 1 GB of SSD memory varies from 100–200 rubles. for small storage sizes up to 20–30 rubles. for mid-level options.

Advice: Experts recommend filling disk partitions no more than 75%. So, if the disk is intended only for system information and the operating system, 60 GB is sufficient. For storing frequently overwritten data, 256–512 GB models are suitable - they are relatively inexpensive.

Another important factor when choosing is bus frequency, on which the speed of reading and writing data will depend.

The most common option is the format SATA2, transmitting up to 3000 Mbit of information per second. SATA3 twice as powerful, however, may not be supported by computers that were released 3-4 years ago.

Other nuances that should be taken into account by the buyer:

• form factor. For laptops, 2.5-inch options are usually chosen, for computers - 3.5 inches;
• IOPS indicator (number of input and output operations per second). For outdated models, its value does not exceed 50–100 thousand, for new disks it reaches 200,000;
• controller type. The best and most reliable options are Marvell, Indilinx and Intel.

10 Best SSD Drives

Some of the most well-known SSD brands include ADATA, AMD, Crucial, Intel, Plextor and Western Digital.

Long-known manufacturers of HDDs, flash cards and USB storage devices Kingston, Samsung, SanDisk, Toshiba and Transcend have also distinguished themselves in the production of SSD drives.

When considering various SSD models, it should be taken into account that 500 GB drives (512, to be more precise) have the optimal ratio of price, volume and quality today.

Their size is enough to store the same volumes as conventional hard drives, and the price is only 2-4 times more. A smaller disk may not be enough, and there is no point in buying more expensive options for several terabytes (with a per-gigabyte price of more than 30 rubles).

1. High resource

Thanks to the use of a reliable controller, the ADATA Premier SP550 drive lasts 2-3 times longer than most competitors at the same price. However, it is not very fast, but it allows you to rewrite up to 1/3 of all data daily. When the cache (4.5 GB) is full, the speed can drop to 70–90 MB/s, although most moving tasks do not require this amount of data.

Technical specifications:

• volume 480 GB;
• maximum read speed – 560 MB/s;
• 16nm technology;
• controller: four-channel Silicon Motion SM2256.

1. The most profitable when purchasing

AMD is not a direct manufacturer of solid-state drives, but it offers several interesting options. One of them is the AMD Radeon R3 480, which can be purchased for about 8,500 rubles. With a capacity of 480 GB, this makes the unit cost of 1 GB less than 18 rubles - there are practically no such offers on the market.

Main characteristics:

• volume 480 GB;
• controller type: SM2256;
• read/write speed: 520/470 MB/s.

1. The optimal solution for a gaming computer

Crucial's lineup is large enough to include options of varying volumes and performance. One of the latest models with a capacity of about half a terabyte is the Crucial MX300 525. It may be the best solution for a computer used for work purposes. First of all, due to good speed and affordable price (about 10 thousand rubles), and secondly, due to the use of a significant reserve of volume - 576 GB instead of the stated 525.

Device parameters:

• capacity: 525 (576) GB;
• speed (read/write): 530/510 GB;
• controller: Marvell 88SS1074.

1. The most reliable

The write and read speed offered by most modern drives is at least 500 MB/s. The maximum value for the flagship model Intel 730 Series 480 is 550 MB/s. The device is highly reliable and comes with reliable protection against power outages. This drive will withstand a greater load compared to other 500 GB options.

Main characteristics:

• maximum speed: 550 MB/s;
• controller: server PC29AS21CA0;
• Capacity: 480 (544) GB.

1. High rewrite capabilities

The peculiarity of the Kingston SSDNow UV400 device is the Marvell 88SS1074 controller and a decent cache size, which, when overfilled, also maintains good speed (more than 110 MB/s). To create the disk, 15nm TLC NAND technology was used.

The service life of the SSD is extended by the ability to rewrite more than 1/3 of the information daily, and the price does not exceed 15,000 rubles.

Drive parameters:

• speed: up to 550 MB/s;
• controller: four-channel Marvell 88SS1074;
• cache: 8 GB.

1. Long warranty

For the Plextor M6 Pro 512 model, created using the relatively outdated Marvell 88SS9187 controller, one of the advantages is about 100 thousand IOPS. The second is TrueSpeed ​​technology, which increases the resource and speed of the disk.

Last year, this drive was among the most expensive, but now, with a price of 17,000 rubles, it is a device quite affordable for many consumers. The manufacturer offers a 5-year warranty on the device - with the standard 2-3.

SSD Specifications:

• speed: up to 557 MB/s;
• controller: Marvell 88SS9187;
• technology: 19 nm.

1. The fastest and easiest

With the price of the Samsung 950 Pro PCIe SSD drive being more than 20 thousand rubles, its read speed of 600–2500 MB/s justifies the cost due to its high speed and lightness.

The memory has a 48-layer structure and high reliability. The manufacturer guarantees 5 years of SSD operation with daily rewriting at 80–100 GB.

Drive parameters:

• controller: Samsung UBX;
• volume: 512 GB;
• weight: 10 g;
• maximum speed: for the SATA III interface – up to 600 MB, for PCIe – up to 2500 MB/s.

1. The most durable

The SanDisk SDSSDEX2-480G-G25 device has a fairly high cost, at 25,000 rubles. At the same time, its read/write speed is 850 MB/s, and its shock resistance reaches 800G. High durability is ensured by a special case from the Extreme 900 Portable series, thanks to which this external SSD drive is easy to transport and, unlike most other models, can be dropped. It weighs, however, as much as 210 g, and its length exceeds 13 cm.

Specifications:

• volume: 512 GB;
• read/write speed: 850/850 MB/s;
• interface: USB 3.1.

1. Security of information

Considering the Toshiba OCZ VT180 480 model, you can dwell on its advantage: the ability to shut down work correctly even in the event of an unexpected power outage.

As a result, data is stored more reliably than with many other options. And an additional advantage when purchasing a drive is its price – from 10 thousand rubles.

Device parameters:

Fig. 11. Compact and affordable Transcend SSD370 512

Fault prevention

In order for a solid-state drive to last long enough, it is worth periodically checking it for errors.

There are applications that help determine what part of the SSD resource has already been used up - such drives have a certain number of write and rewrite cycles, after exceeding which they can fail.

CrystalDiskInfo

The CrystalDiskInfo program, which can also be downloaded in a portable version, allows you to diagnose equipment and identify errors. To work with it, you just need to launch the application itself, which itself will check the disk for errors.

The yellow color under the Health Status inscription indicates problems with the disk - most likely, the drive will have to be replaced soon. Blue indicates that the SSD is working normally.

SSD life

The SSD Life application with a Russian-language interface will show specific information about how many hours of operation your drive has left.

The program does this by accessing the controller, which stores all the information in memory. However, even after SSD Life showed that the drive’s resource is almost a third exhausted, there is no need to worry. Firstly, it is not necessary that after 3000 writes the disk will definitely fail. Secondly, on average, one “cycle” is considered a day of work. And over a period of more than 8 years (with 100% resource that the application will show for a new SSD), the user usually changes the drive himself, regardless of its type.

Solid state drives, also known as SSDs, are actively taking away market share in the personal computer market from standard hard drives (HDDs). In recent years, this trend has been especially noticeable due to the falling cost of such storage devices. The price of SSD drives continues to be higher than that of HDDs, if we talk about variations of the same volume, but the advantages of solid-state information storage justify it.

Pros and cons of SSD drives

Before purchasing an SSD drive, you need to evaluate the pros and cons that the user will receive from such a solution. The obvious advantages of solid-state drives over HDD drives include the following:

The disadvantages of SSD drives include the high cost and difficulty of purchasing such large-capacity drives.

How to choose an SSD drive

SSDs from various manufacturers are available on the market. One company may have several lines of SSD drives, which vary in cost. When selecting an SSD, it is important to pay attention to the main parameters, choosing the best options for your tasks.

SSD capacity

The main parameter when choosing a solid-state drive is its capacity. On the market you can find models with different free space for storing information, and before purchasing it is important to decide for what purpose the drive will be used.

Most often, SSD drives are purchased to increase the loading speed and operation of the operating system. If only Windows, Linux or another system will be installed on the disk, it makes sense to choose a 128 GB or 256 GB drive, depending on how much information the user stores in system folders, for example, “My Documents”. On average, the operating system takes up 40-60 GB (if we are talking about Windows).

If you purchase a solid-state drive as the only data storage device in your computer, you should choose the size of the SSD, depending on the purpose of the PC and the activity of working on it.

SSD speed

The parameter that the disk manufacturer pays special attention to is operating speed. On the box of each solid-state drive you can see information about how fast the information storage device works for writing and reading. However, such figures are in most cases a marketing ploy, and in reality they are much lower. This is due to the fact that the disk manufacturer indicates the maximum sequential read/write speed, which does not play a big role in standard computer work.

When choosing an SSD drive, you need to pay attention to its speed in random operations of writing and reading 4K blocks of information. It is with such data that the drive in a computer has to work 90% of the time, occasionally reaching peak values. You can find out information about the actual operating speed of an SSD using various programs, so before purchasing a drive, it is recommended that you check the Internet for tests of a specific drive model.

Note: In most cases, the fastest drives for standard tasks are those that have a high maximum sequential read/write speed, but this is not always the case. In addition, the values ​​​​specified by the SSD manufacturer may be overestimated.

SSD connection interface

SSD drives can be connected to a computer via one of the following interfaces:

• SATA 2;
• SATA 3;
• PCIe-E.

The fastest models use the SATA 3 interface, which has increased bandwidth.

As for PCIe-E SSD drives, it is almost impossible to find them on sale. Such drives are used for specific tasks when it is not possible to connect an accessory via SATA of any version. Using a PCIe-E connector is impractical in terms of its bandwidth.

SSD memory chip

Depending on the memory chip used in the information storage, the number of bits in one cell, the speed of the drive and the number of possible overwrites of information vary. In SSDs you can find SLC, MLC and TLC chips. Their comparative characteristics are shown in the table:

Most often you can find on sale solid-state drives made on MLC chips. This is justified by the cost of their production and characteristics. Drives with SLC chips are more often used for servers, and SSDs based on them are expensive. As for TLC memory chips, they are common in removable storage media (flash drives), which do not require as many write/read cycles as SSD drives installed in a computer.

SSD controller

The stability and competence of the controller in a solid-state drive largely determines its speed, durability, support for additional technologies and many other basic parameters. You need to choose SSDs that have a drive installed from one of the leading companies in this field: Intel, Marvell, Sandforce or Indilinx.

Note: If a disk indicates high operating speed, but it has a bad controller from an unknown company, there is a high probability that such a drive will not work for long or will have problems when writing/reading information. This is why it is not recommended to buy “no-name SSDs”, about which there is no information other than the maximum sequential read/write parameters.

Additional SSD options and parameters

When purchasing SSDs, you may notice various items and options listed in their specifications. Let's decipher the most common of them:

• IOPS– this indicator indicates how many operations per second the drive is capable of performing. You should pay attention to it, because in most cases it can tell more about the actual speed of the disk than information about the maximum read/write parameters;
• MTBF– operating time of a solid-state drive before failure. This parameter is measured in hours, and not all drive manufacturers indicate it. MTBF is calculated based on tests performed, during which the disks are loaded until they fail, after which the average values ​​are calculated;
• TRIM– an option that is present in the controller of almost all SSDs. It implies that the “brain” of the drive will always be aware of which cells have been cleared of the information previously contained in them, thereby giving the disk the opportunity to use them;
• S.M.A.R.T.– a diagnostic option that is present in almost every solid-state storage device. It is necessary so that the disk can independently assess its condition, thereby approximately calculating the time before failure;
• Garbage Collection– an option designed to automatically clear memory of “phantom” files and other “garbage”.

The myth that SSDs work several times less than HDDs has long been dispelled. With standard loading, solid-state hard drives can be used for 10 years or more without problems.

A hard drive is needed to install the operating system, programs and store various user files (documents, photos, music, movies, etc.).

Hard drives differ in capacity, which determines the amount of data it can store, speed, which determines the performance of the entire computer, and reliability, which depends on its manufacturer.

Conventional hard drives (HDD) have a large capacity, low speed and low cost. The fastest are solid state drives (SSD), but they have a small capacity and are much more expensive. An intermediate option between them are hybrid disks (SSHD), which have sufficient capacity, are faster than conventional HDDs and are slightly more expensive.

Western Digital (WD) hard drives are considered the most reliable. The best SSD drives are produced by: Samsung, Intel, Crucial, SanDisk, Plextor. More budget options can be considered: A-DATA, Corsair, GoodRAM, WD, HyperX, since they have the least problems. And hybrid drives (SSHD) are mainly produced by Seagate.

For an office computer that is used primarily for working with documents and the Internet, a regular hard drive from the inexpensive WD Blue series with a capacity of up to 500 GB is sufficient. But 1 TB disks are optimal today, since they are not much more expensive.

For a multimedia computer (video, simple games), it is better to use a 1 TB WD Blue drive as an additional one for storing files, and install a 120-128 GB SSD as the main one, which will significantly speed up the operation of the system and programs.

For a gaming computer, it is advisable to take an SSD with a capacity of 240-256 GB; you can install several games on it.
Hard drive A-Data Ultimate SU650 240GB

As a more economical option for a multimedia or gaming PC, you can purchase one Seagate hybrid drive (SSHD) with a capacity of 1 TB; it is not as fast as an SSD, but still slightly faster than a regular HDD drive.
Hard drive Seagate FireCuda ST1000DX002 1TB

Well, for a powerful professional PC, in addition to the SSD (120-512 GB), you can take a fast and reliable WD Black hard drive of the required volume (1-4 GB).

I also recommend purchasing a high-quality Transcend external drive with a USB 3.0 interface for 1-2 TB for the system and files that are important to you (documents, photos, videos, projects).
Hard drive Transcend StoreJet 25M3 1 TB

2. Disk types

Modern computers use both classic hard drives on magnetic platters (HDD) and faster solid-state drives based on memory chips (SSD). There are also hybrid drives (SSHD), which are a symbiosis of HDD and SSD.

The hard drive (HDD) has a large capacity (1000-8000 GB), but low speed (120-140 MB/s). It can be used both to install the system and store user files, which is the most economical option.

Solid state drives (SSD) have a relatively small volume (120-960 GB), but very high speed (450-550 MB/s). They cost significantly more and are used to install the operating system and some programs to increase the speed of the computer.

A hybrid drive (SSHD) is simply a hard drive with a small amount of faster memory added to it. For example, this might look like 1TB HDD + 8GB SSD.

3. Application of HDD, SSD and SSHD drives

For an office computer (documents, Internet), it is enough to install one regular hard drive (HDD).

For a multimedia computer (movies, simple games), you can add a small SSD drive in addition to the HDD, which will make the system work much faster and more responsive. As a compromise between speed and capacity, you can consider installing one SSHD drive, which will be much cheaper.

For a powerful gaming or professional computer, the best option is to install two drives - an SSD for the operating system, programs, games, and a regular hard drive for storing user files.

4. Physical sizes of disks

Hard drives for desktop computers are 3.5 inches in size.

Solid state drives are 2.5 inches in size, just like laptop hard drives.

An SSD drive is installed into a regular computer using a special mount in the case or an additional adapter.

Don't forget to purchase it if it is not included with the drive and your case does not have special mounts for 2.5″ drives. But now almost all modern cases have mounts for SSD drives, which are indicated in the description as internal 2.5″ bays.

5. Hard drive connectors

All hard drives have an interface connector and a power connector.

5.1. Interface connector

An interface connector is a connector for connecting a drive to the motherboard using a special cable (cable).

Modern hard drives (HDD) have a SATA3 connector, which is fully compatible with older versions of SATA2 and SATA1. If your motherboard has old connectors, don't worry, a new hard drive can be connected to them and it will work.

But for an SSD drive, it is desirable that the motherboard have SATA3 connectors. If your motherboard has SATA2 connectors, then the SSD drive will operate at half its speed (about 280 MB/s), which, however, is still significantly faster than a regular HDD.

5.2. Power connector

Modern hard drives (HDD) and solid-state drives (SSD) have the same 15-pin SATA power connectors. If the disk is installed in a desktop computer, its power supply must have such a connector. If it is not there, then you can use a Molex-SATA power adapter.

6. Hard drive capacities

For each type of hard drive, depending on its purpose, the amount of data it can hold will be different.

6.1. Hard disk capacity (HDD) for a computer

For a computer intended for typing and accessing the Internet, the smallest modern hard drive – 320-500 GB – is sufficient.

For a multimedia computer (video, music, photos, simple games), it is advisable to have a hard drive with a capacity of 1000 GB (1 TB).

A powerful gaming or professional computer may require a 2-4 TB drive (use your needs).

It is necessary to take into account that the computer motherboard must support UEFI, otherwise the operating system will not see the entire disk capacity of more than 2 TB.

If you want to increase the speed of the system, but are not ready to spend money on an additional SSD drive, then as an alternative option you can consider purchasing a hybrid SSHD drive with a capacity of 1-2 TB.

6.2. Hard disk capacity (HDD) for a laptop

If a laptop is used as an addition to the main computer, then a hard drive with a capacity of 320-500 GB will be sufficient. If a laptop is used as a main computer, then it may require a hard drive with a capacity of 750-1000 GB (depending on the use of the laptop).
Hard drive Hitachi Travelstar Z5K500 HTS545050A7E680 500GB

You can also install an SSD drive in the laptop, which will significantly increase its speed and system responsiveness, or a hybrid SSHD drive, which is slightly faster than a regular HDD.
Hard drive Seagate Laptop SSHD ST500LM021 500GB

It is important to consider what thickness of disks your laptop supports. Discs with a thickness of 7 mm will fit into any model, but those with a thickness of 9 mm may not fit everywhere, although not many of them are produced anymore.

6.3. Solid State Drive (SSD) Capacity

Since SSD drives are not used for storing data, when determining their required capacity, you need to proceed from how much space the operating system installed on it will take up and whether you will install any other large programs and games on it.

Modern operating systems (Windows 7,8,10) require about 40 GB of space to operate and grow with updates. In addition, you need to install at least the basic programs on the SSD, otherwise it won’t be of much use. Well, for normal operation, there should always be 15-30% free space on the SSD.

For a multimedia computer (movies, simple games), the best option would be an SSD with a capacity of 120-128 GB, which will allow, in addition to the system and basic programs, to install several simple games on it. Since an SSD is required not only to quickly open folders, it makes sense to install the most powerful programs and games on it, which will speed up the speed of their work.

Heavy modern games take up a huge amount of space. Therefore, a powerful gaming computer requires a 240-512 GB SSD, depending on your budget.

For professional tasks, such as editing video in high quality, or installing a dozen modern games, you need an SSD with a capacity of 480-1024 GB, again depending on the budget.

6.4. Data backup

When choosing disk space, it is advisable to also take into account the need to create a backup copy of user files (videos, photos, etc.) that will be stored on it. Otherwise, you risk instantly losing everything you have accumulated over the years. Therefore, it is often more advisable to purchase not one huge disk, but two smaller disks - one for work, the other (possibly external) for a backup copy of files.

7. Basic disk parameters

The main parameters of disks, which are often indicated in price lists, include spindle speed and memory buffer size.

7.1. Spindle speed

The spindle has hard and hybrid disks based on magnetic platters (HDD, SSHD). Since SSD drives are built on memory chips, they do not have a spindle. The speed of the hard drive's spindle determines its operating speed.

The spindle of hard drives for desktop computers generally has a rotation speed of 7200 rpm. Sometimes there are models with a spindle speed of 5400 rpm, which work slower.

Laptop hard drives generally have a spindle speed of 5400 rpm, which allows them to be quieter, run cooler, and consume less power.

7.2. Memory Buffer Size

A buffer is a cache memory of a hard drive based on memory chips. This buffer is intended to speed up the hard drive, but it does not have a big impact (about 5-10%).

Modern hard drives (HDD) have a buffer size of 32-128 MB. In principle, 32 MB is enough, but if the price difference is not significant, then you can take a hard drive with a larger buffer size. Optimal for today is 64 MB.

8. Disk speed characteristics

Speed ​​characteristics common to HDD, SSHD and SSD drives include linear read/write speed and random access time.

8.1. Linear reading speed

Linear read speed is the main parameter for any disk and dramatically affects its operating speed.

For modern hard drives and hybrid drives (HDD, SSHD), an average read speed of closer to 150 MB/s is a good value. You should not purchase hard drives with a speed of 100 MB/s or less.

Solid state drives (SSD) are much faster and their read speed, depending on the model, is 160-560 MB/s. The optimal price/speed ratio is SSD drives with a read speed of 450-500 MB/s.

As for HDD drives, sellers in price lists usually do not indicate their speed parameters, but only the volume. Later in this article I will tell you how to find out these characteristics. With SSD drives everything is simpler, since their speed characteristics are always indicated in the price lists.

8.2. Linear write speed

This is a secondary parameter after reading speed, which is usually indicated in tandem with it. For hard and hybrid drives (HDD, SSHD), the write speed is usually somewhat lower than the read speed and is not considered when choosing a disk, since they are mainly focused on the read speed.

For SSD drives, the write speed can be either less than or equal to the read speed. In price lists, these parameters are indicated through a slash (for example, 510/430), where a larger number means read speed, a smaller number means write speed.

For good fast SSDs it is about 550/550 MB/s. But in general, write speed has a much smaller effect on the speed of a computer than read speed. As a budget option, a slightly lower speed is allowed, but not lower than 450/350 Mb/s.

8.3. Access time

Access time is the second most important disk parameter after read/write speed. Access time has a particularly strong effect on the speed of reading/copying small files. The lower this parameter, the better. In addition, low access time indirectly indicates a higher quality hard disk drive (HDD).

A good access time for a hard disk drive (HDD) is 13-15 milliseconds. Values ​​within 16-20 ms are considered a bad indicator. I will also tell you how to determine this parameter in this article.

As for SSD drives, their access time is 100 times less than that of HDD drives, so this parameter is not indicated anywhere and is not paid attention to.

Hybrid disks (SSHD), due to additional built-in flash memory, achieve lower access times than HDDs, which are comparable to SSDs. But due to the limited capacity of flash memory, lower access times are only achieved when accessing the most frequently accessed files that end up in that flash memory. Usually these are system files, which provide higher computer boot speed and high system responsiveness, but do not fundamentally affect the operation of large programs and games, since they simply will not fit in the limited amount of fast memory of an SSHD disk.

9. Manufacturers of hard drives (HDD, SSHD)

The most popular hard drive manufacturers are the following:

Seagate- produces some of the fastest drives today, but they are not considered the most reliable.

Western Digital (WD)— are considered the most reliable and have a convenient classification by color.

• WD Blue– budget general purpose drives
• W.D. Green– quiet and economical (frequently switched off)
• WD Black– fast and reliable
• WD Red– for data storage systems (NAS)
• WD Purple– for video surveillance systems
• W.D. Gold– for servers
• W.D. Re– for RAID arrays
• W.D.Se– for scalable corporate systems

Blue ones are the most common drives, suitable for inexpensive office and multimedia PCs. Black ones combine high speed and reliability; I recommend using them in powerful systems. The rest are intended for specific tasks.

In general, if you want cheaper and faster, then choose Seagate. If it's cheap and reliable - Hitachi. Fast and reliable - Western Digital from the black series.

Hybrid SSHD drives are now mainly produced by Seagete and they are of good quality.

There are discs from other manufacturers on sale, but I recommend limiting yourself to the indicated brands, as there are fewer problems with them.

10. Manufacturers of solid state drives (SSD)

Among the manufacturers of SSD drives the following have proven themselves well:

• Samsung
• Intel
• Crucial
• SanDisk
• Plextor

More budget options can be considered:

• Corsair
• GoodRAM
• A-DATA (Premier Pro)
• Kingston (HyperX)

11. SSD memory type

SSD drives can be built on different types of memory:

• 3 D NAND– fast and durable
• MLC– good resource
• V-NAND– average resource
• TLC– low resource

12. Hard drive speed (HDD, SSHD)

We can find out all the parameters of SSD drives we need, such as capacity, speed and manufacturer, from the seller’s price list and then compare them by price.

The parameters of HDD drives can be found out by the model or batch number on the manufacturers' websites, but in fact this is quite difficult, since these catalogs are huge, have a lot of incomprehensible parameters, which are called differently for each manufacturer, and also in English. Therefore, I offer you another method that I use myself.

There is a program for testing hard drives HDTune. It allows you to determine parameters such as linear reading speed and access time. There are many enthusiasts who conduct these tests and post the results on the Internet. In order to find the test results of a particular hard drive model, just enter its model number in the Google or Yandex image search, which is indicated in the seller’s price list or on the drive itself in the store.

This is what the disk test image from the search looks like.

As you can see, this picture shows the average linear read speed and random access time, which are what interests us. Just make sure that the model number in the picture matches the model number of your drive.

In addition, from the graph you can roughly determine the quality of the disk. An uneven graph with large jumps and high access times indirectly indicate imprecise, low-quality disk mechanics.

A beautiful cyclical or simply uniform graph without large jumps, combined with low access time, indicates precise, high-quality disk mechanics.

Such a disk will work better, faster and last longer.

13. Optimal disk

So, which disk or disk configuration to choose for your computer, depending on its purpose. In my opinion, the following configurations will be the most optimal.

• office PC – HDD (320-500 GB)
• entry-level multimedia PC – HDD (1 TB)
• mid-level multimedia PC – SSD (120-128 GB) + HDD (1 TB) or SSHD (1 TB)
• Entry-level gaming PC – HDD (1 TB)
• Mid-range gaming PC – SSHD (1 TB)
• High-end gaming PC – SSD (240-512 GB) + HDD (1-2 TB)
• professional PC – SSD (480-1024 GB) + HDD/SSHD (2-4 TB)

14. Cost of HDD and SSD drives

In conclusion, I want to talk a little about the general principles of choosing between more or less expensive disk models.

The price of HDD drives depends most on the disk capacity and slightly on the manufacturer (by 5-10%). Therefore, it is not advisable to skimp on the quality of HDDs. Buy models from recommended manufacturers, even if they are a little more expensive, as they will last longer.

The price of SSD drives, in addition to capacity and speed, also greatly depends on the manufacturer. Here I can give a simple recommendation - choose the cheapest SSD drive from the list of recommended manufacturers that suits you in terms of capacity and speed.

15. Links

Hard drive Western Digital Black WD1003FZEX 1TB
Hard drive Western Digital Caviar Blue WD10EZEX 1 TB
Hard drive A-Data Ultimate SU650 120GB