Buying Tips for All Your Solid State Drive Shopping

From the last 2 decades, everything in the computer world has become faster and faster every day. People are constantly upgrading their computers and laptops from time to time to get the full performance out from their computer system;

They upgrade RAM, Processors and even change their System’s Motherboard too, but nobody thinks about to upgrade their primary storage device, where mainly all the computer process get starts in.

The device what I am talking about is your computer’s Hard Drive. A lot of people don’t think that way, but all the things you do on your computer (whatever it’s gaming, browsing, editing & etc.), all those programs and media are mainly processed from the local Hard Disk Drive of our computer (where the data read & write speed do matter the most).

If you are reading this article then it’s quite possible that you are looking to upgrade your computer system’s storage device, which is Great;

And believe it or not, but using a Solid State Drive for OS instead a normal Hard Disk Drive can double your old system’s performance even without upgrading anything else, like any Ram or Processor.

And those peoples who are currently using the SSD into their computer or laptop, even they don’t want to move back to the OLD Hard Drive and the reason is quite simple, the huge 20 times better and faster storage performance difference.

So, if you’re willing to buy a new solid-state drive for your new or maybe old computer, then this is the best thing what to can do for your computer to cut the whole system’s storage performance bottleneck out from its way.



#Let’s See How to Buy A Solid State Drive for All Your Super-Fast Storage Needs

Buying a new SSD for your computer or laptop isn’t that simple like buying a new Hard Disk Drive. I’m only saying this because even a low performer SSD can deliver you the perfect speed as compared to the Top-end HDD.

And not all SSDs are same, you can actually see the huge price difference in different SSDs which even having the same storage capacity.

And not just that, even there are 4 different types of SSD are available in the market which makes buying an SSD more complicated.

So, here are the three main characteristics of the Solid State Drive which you’ll need to understand before getting out for the shopping;

  • Storage Capacity
  • Real-Time Performance
  • Compatibility

And to understand all these things, like how much capacity do you need for your computer or which size of SSD can fit into your system’s casing or how much performance do you need for yourself, or maybe how to differentiate the performance difference in different SSD’s;

They all some great some great questions, and to answer that I actually made the three different subtopics written down below in this article where I talked about all these subjects and make everything clear about the topic so you can understand the SSD much better and make your purchase worthful for the money you spend.

So, let’s starts with;



#1 – How Much Storage Do You Need for Your New SSD Drive?

Determining the storage need is all depending upon your use and the reason why I started with the storage needs is that a normal SSD is 3 times and some are actually 5 times expensive as compared to a normal hard drive.

And that’s the reason why people buy SSD storage more wisely than other drives. For a normal user, using around 250 Gigs of SSD with including an HDD is I think enough according to my experience.

Not a problem for desktop, but if your laptop doesn’t have any extra space to fit any secondary drive in. In that case, you can look for some higher storage drive like 500GB or 1TB or something.

And if you don’t have a big budget to buy a big storage Solid State Drive, then you can go for the low-end SSD drives which are also quite worthy these days.

#2 – What’s the performance difference in different SSDs?

If you ever tried to shop an SSD online, you’ll see that there are a lot of different specs range SSDs available in the market who’s having the same amount of storage capacity in it, but with the huge price difference.

Some are cheap, some are expensive and to describe this difference, the word we use is ‘performance’ who tells everything about the drive. Performance is the main reasons why we use SSD at the first place because nobody wants to lose their money for a slow speed drive;

And yes, there are also slow Solid State Drives Too who outdated from the market.

So, here are some major specifications what you’ll need to look for to get the best out of your purchase:

  1. Type of NAND Chips: Everybody knows that SSD is fast because of it not moving works parts which only contains memory chips, what we mainly called a NAND Chip. For the past 5 years, SSDs becomes more powerful and bigger every day. Even some chips can provide you the bandwidth up to 3GB/s of data transferring speed.

Here’s the list of NAND Chip types which all easily available in the market:

  • Single-level cell (SLC) – is the one who actually stores 1 bit of data per cell which offers you the highest performance what you can ever get from a solid-state drive. But the bad part about the SLC SSDs is, those are really expensive and you’ll have to extra lose your pocket if you are willing to buy some extraordinary stuff.
  • Multi-level cell (MLC): SSD’s can store multiple bits of data per cell which is mainly two 2 bits. Actually, this type of chips comes with lower endurance as compared to the SLC Chips, and the best part about that, even a low budget buyer can afford it and can feel the great power of data processing speed. Not just that, the MLC SSD’s also becomes the highest selling SSDs nowadays.
  • Triple-level cell (TLC): SSDs can actually store 3 bits of data per cell which mainly slow down its performance but its ultra-cheap and best for any budget user.
  1. DATA Read and Write Speed: Speed is the core performance of every storage device because that describes how fast your data going to write or read from those memory cells which basically built on the SSD’s motherboard circuit. There are mainly two different ways to calculate the read and write performance of any SSD storage device and those are: By checking it’s ‘Sequential Access’ speed and ‘Random Access’.

Both of the specs are provided by the manufacturer and mainly we calculate the Sequential Access speed in Megabytes per Second, and for Random Access speed we use numbers of IOPS (Input/Output Per Second).

The only thing what you’ll need to focus on is that the higher number is better whatever you are looking for better sequential or random-access performance.

If you need my opinion, then I highly recommend you to look for higher Random-Access speed (or higher IOPS) SSD;

I’m only saying this because when our Operating System starts to get in the process it read files from different directories which takes time, and if you have a decent amount of IOPS in your SSD you can actually boot your computer 10 times faster than a normal Hard Drive.

  1. Endurance – Not like an HDD, but SSD does have a limit lifespan. And that’s why it’s important to look for the drive’s endurance before selecting any. The endurance is provided in “TBW” which means Terabytes Written and can help you to know how much data you can write all along.

#3 – What Type & Size of SSD gets Fit in Your desktop or Laptop?

Just like I said, there are 4 different types of SSDs are available in the market and every different SSD have its own different interface to make that SSD more reliable as compared to a normal hard disk drive.

And not just that, every different type SSD having its own different physical size or length, so you can just use the SSD in almost every laptop or computer system around the world.

List of 4 different Types of SSD:

  • 2.5 Inch SSD
  • PCI Card SSD
  • mSATA SSD
  • M.2 SSD

Compatibility is the next big thing while buying an SSD, so make sure don’t forget to read this suggested article about: Check SSD (2.5/mSATA/M.2/PCIe) Compatibility with Laptop or Desktop Motherboard

If look for; How to Buy A Best External SSD (Solid State Drive)?

It’s all upon you to buy which one, in case you need some extra help. Here is a list of articles which I update monthly just to make your shopping more worthful;

“That’s all for now, thanks for sticking with the article, and you know it will always good to let me know about the article, in the comments down below.” 🙂




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