Internal SSDs - Showing 2353 - 2376 of 2388 Products

Benefits of External RAID Enclosures

Computer hard drives store data on magnetic disks and have heads that read and write bits of data. As the head moves over the surface of a disk, it interacts with the disk’s magnetic field and causes changes that can be measured and converted to a binary value. Because data is spread across the surface of the disk, the head must physically go to where the data is located on the disk so that it can read the binary values. Referred to as seek time, this process is measured in milliseconds and can cause some noise and vibrations. An operation such as loading software requires the drive to move to many different sections of the disk to read the data, which is not an instant or entirely silent process.

In contrast, internal solid state drives have no moving parts. They store data in memory chips similar to those found in USB flash drives and have controller chips to regulate communication between the memory chips and computer. The controller card on an internal SSD accesses data by sending and receiving electrical signals from the memory chips, requiring no moving components. So when a SSD reads a large file, the controller chip reads the data from the memory and sends it to the computer quickly and silently.

Some advantages that internal solid state drives have over hard drives include:

Performance

Internal solid state drives usually score higher than hard drives in performance benchmarks, with some having average read speeds over 400 MBps. Performance can depend heavily on the components and type of interface used, so you will want to check the rated read/write speeds and interface listed on the internal SSD product description pages.

Durability

Sudden movements can be big problems for disks spinning at several thousand revolutions per minute. Compared to hard drives, internal Solid state drives have less points of failure and are not as susceptible to external forces. Because of that, laptops benefit greatly from internal SSDs since they can be subjected to a lot of movement and possible impacts while being transported.

Form Factor

Many solid state drives have the same 2.5 inch form factor as laptop hard drives, so they can be used as replacement drives without additional equipment required. For desktops that do not support 2.5 inch drives, 2.5 inch to 3.5 inch adapters will be required.

Noise

Because hard drives need to spin the storage media and have heads that need to move, they can create perceptible noise. With no moving parts, SSDs have no noise output.

Considerations

Despite the advantages listed above, internal SSDs have not made the hard drive obsolete. One reason that SSDs are not more widely used is their high cost per gigabyte (GB). A 100 GB SSD will cost more than a 100 GB hard drive, so unless fast read or write speeds are required, SSDs are usually not used for storing copious amounts of data.