Solid State Hardrives

[ohiousa55]

Hi
What do you think about useing these hardrives? Are they for Laptops because their only 2.5". Can you use them in a full size computer case. IDK im kind interested in them for a computer build. The only thing i would use it for would be the OS only. I have several external hardrives that i use for everything i down load.

[raserei408]

SSDs have the benefit of being EXTREMELY fast as compared to standard platter-based drives. This is both in straight reads (and depending on the model, writes), and in latency. However, this speed comes at the price of cost / gigabyte, as SSDs have small capacities and are very expensive compared to platter-based HDDs. Most are 2.5", and as such are great in laptops (they not only increase speed, but they reduce heat output and power consumption). However, many use them in desktops, though this is primarily for the speed. While they can often be fit into cases without one, 3.5" to 2.5" converters are recommended, though primarily to keep the case looking nice.

As for my personal opinion on whether or not you should get them, here's my general thought on them; they're a big money sink. It's not that you shouldn't get one (or even two) if you can afford them. Just make sure you're not sacrificing the power of your core computer (getting a bad motherboard, CPU, GPU, etc.) for an SSD. I like the analogy of RPM vs torque. Putting in an SSD but without the hardware to back it up is like having a car that can do really high RPMs but can only carry 200lbs. It seems really fast, but once you try to do any heavy work that high RPM won't help you unless you've got the torque to match it.