Hard drives. In desktops they're the size of a paperback book, in laptops they're roughly the size of a smartphone, and they're the device inside your computer where all of your data is stored. Every photo, document, application, desktop shortcut, and every piece of data that's used to run your operating system is stored on that hunk of metal.
A quick glossary before we begin: SSD = Solid State Drive. HDD = Hard Disk Drive
HDD's are the most common type of drive today and the kind that we've had since the early days of personal computing. The inside of an HDD looks very much like a futuristic turntable. From the top, you see a disc that's spinning, and an arm swings back and forth, reading the drive. From the side, though, you would see that instead of one disc there's several (the number varies). And the arm is forked to be able to read any of the heads at any given time. As you use your computer, the discs inside (or platters) spin extremely fast at 5400 or 7200 RPM. The arm swings back and forth, accessing data as it's asked for. As fast as that sounds, it's actually pretty slow. One piece of data could be in a completely different location on the drive from the next one that's asked for, and the arm has to swing to find it and wait for the platters to spin around to meet it at the right spot. Sometimes a single file can be in multiple pieces and in multiple locations on the platter (this is what fragmentation is), slowing things down even further.
Enter the Solid State Drive (or SSD). An SSD has no moving parts whatsoever. It's just a case surrounding a circuit board covered in memory chips. There are several advantages this gives. The first is size. SSDs mostly come in the smaller laptop drive size and almost never in the paperback book size. They don't need it. And they can be even smaller, making for more compact laptops and other computers. The second advantage of an SSD is durability. In general, an SSD is less prone to bumps and falls, which often cause HDDs to fail when the head scrapes across a platter much like a record scratch.
But the biggest advantage of an SSD is speed. Because there is no moving assembly inside an SSD, the computer doesn't need to wait for an arm to meet a point on a disc. Instead, all data is accessible at equal speeds. It's also no necessary to break up a file for storage, so there's no need to defragment an SSD. The speed differences can be drastic, especially when first turning the computer on. HDDs need time to spin up and get started, and then are slower to operate. An SSD can be accessed immediately, resulting in boot times under a minute and sometimes as short as about 10-15 seconds. The speed is also especially noticeable when opening up applications. Programs like Word and Excel will launch almost instantly.
The biggest downside to SSDs is their price. A 500GB HDD only costs about $55. A 500GB SSD costs three times that, or around $155. And anything bigger than that is prohibitively expensive. A 1TB HDD runs around $85, but a 1TB SSD is around $400. I usually recommend a 250 or 500GB SSD as a good sweet spot. Because of the price, many people (myself included) will put their operating system, applications, and most-used files on the SSD and then get a second internal or external inexpensive HDD for the rest of the files. It's most important to have software on the fast drive, and files can come from a slower drive.
Almost any computer's HDD can be replaced with an SSD. It's often a great way to stretch out the life of a computer. The best part about an SSD upgrade is that if it's done right, absolutely nothing about your computing environment is changed. All your files and applications are still there, and everything right down to the shortcuts on your desktop are right where you left them. Replacing your computer entirely requires the reinstallation of all your programs and quite a lot of time getting everything set up just how you like it. This upgrade gets you the speed boost of a new computer without the hassle of setting everything up!
The cost of the upgrade varies, mostly depending on the size of the drive you want. Call 3TG today to ask about upgrading the drive in your computer.