A novelty among media - SSD-disk

Now it's fashionable to talk about what a SSD-disk is and what stunning prospects lie in this technology of manufacturing media. Almost on any thematic forum you can meet admiring reviews of happy owners of these devices. Why did I need a SSD based on solid-state memory?

Bottleneck

As you know, the performance of any computer is determined by the speed with which the CPU performs mathematical operations. Actually, the very English word "compute" means "calculate, calculate". However, this is obvious. But what does the SSD have to do with it? In fact, the connection is direct. After all, any computer system is not limited to a single processor, but is a complex of various components, each of which fulfills its own set of tasks. Thus, there is a situation where the data already processed by the computational block stops at other sites, being limited by the performance of any component component. Speaking of this phenomenon, the bottleneck is often mentioned, when the rate of flow of liquid from the container is limited by the diameter of the narrowing neck.

One of these slow sections is the disk subsystem. Since the classic hard drive is created on the basis of rotating magnetic disks, the laws of mechanics impose limitations on performance. For example, the cost of models with ten thousand revolutions per minute significantly exceeds similar solutions, but with 7200. In total, some additional 2,800 revolutions - and the price of the device is increasing at times. The reason for this is the need for more accurate balancing, the use of improved bearings, etc. But more recently the output has been found. He was an SSD-disk.

New with fantastic features

The computer industry has long felt the need for a fundamentally new device for storing information, in which there was no limiting factor of mechanics. With the advent of transistors with a gate of a floating type, it became possible to create flash memory chips. And already on their basis - data storage devices. Such carriers do not have any moving parts in their design, which means their speed depends only on the characteristics of the transistors themselves (how quickly the electronic key can change its state) and the capabilities of the controller that controls the array of memory cells.

At the same time, in this technology there are a number of features that do not yet allow SSD devices to completely drive out the "oldies" HDD from the market. Some of these we will point out below, considering the choice of an SSD drive.

Nuances

In comparison with traditional, solid-state media have a number of advantages: they work noiselessly, the data transfer rate of modern models exceeds this parameter in HDD, the energy efficiency is higher. The latter makes the SSD-disk for the laptop very much in demand, allowing you to save battery power.

Since all such devices are characterized by the allowable number of cycles of access to memory cells, it is recommended to pay attention to modern models using more advanced schemes than in previous generations.

To increase productivity and service life, you need to choose the solution in the specification to which support for the TRIM command is specified.

To ensure that the interface does not turn out to be a bottleneck, you should choose SATA-2 or even SATA-3. The same is true with USB - the higher the version, the better.