Q: I'm interested in getting an SSD (solid-state drive) with computer-chip memory to replace a mechanical hard disk drive. What are the main differences between SSDs and hard drives?
NICK JAKUBOWSKY, St. Paul
A: The age of your computer may determine whether you can replace its hard drive with an SSD.
An older computer needs a SATA (Serial Advanced Technology Attachment) connection to link to most SSDs. But there have been several types of SATA connections since the early 2000s, and you'll need a computer repair shop to tell you if your PC has the right one for today's SSDs.
Reasons why you would want an SSD:
- SSDs are faster because they use flash memory (a computer-chip technology) instead of a rotating disk with a read-write device suspended above it. Some experts say an average SSD reads data about 10 times faster and writes data about 20 times faster than a hard drive.
- SSDs are a plus for travelers because they're lighter and use less battery power than disk drives.
- Consumer-priced SSDs now have capacities of 1 terabyte or larger, comparable to disk drives.
- SSDs have no moving parts, so they're less prone to wear and tear than disk drives are. However, SSDs do wear out because their circuits work only a limited number of times.
- You don't need to defragment an SSD. Defragmenting a hard drive puts whole files in the same location, cutting down on data access time. Defragging a fast SSD won't speed it up.
Reasons why you wouldn't want an SSD:
- SSDs are more expensive than disk drives. At best, a 1 terabyte SSD costs about twice as much as comparable disk drive, and some SSD models cost more than that.
- Even if a hard drive fails, its data is often recoverable from the physical disk. If an SSD fails, its data will probably be lost inside a digital circuit.
Q: My Windows 10 laptop crashes (I get a blue screen and the PC reboots) when I try to save a file to a USB flash drive. The same flash drive works with other PCs. What's wrong?
JERRY JOHNSON, Colorado Springs
