Eric Garay

Capacity and Price Save the Platter Drive

Regular drives are much cheaper and come in much larger capacities than SSDs. SSDs don’t have moving parts like regular drives which do and will eventually stop working as they break down. A good 128GB SSD’s “wear leveling” will take somewhere in the neighborhood of 16 years to cause issue as long as it works to specs. However, the common SSD carries a 3Yr warranty versus platter’s 5Yr warranty. But, some SSDs like the TorqX from Patriot are covered for 10 years.

Despite best efforts, there are only a handful of innovations to combat this. Western Digital called Stable Trac, improvements to the drive’s head to eliminate redundant cycles, and of course, the development of high RPM drives like the VelociRaptor Series. This further perpetuates consumers keeping a very close watch on SSDs.

But, again, capacity and price are very important features to today’s media loving generations. You can get a lot more on a $90 1TB SATAII hard drive than a $350 128GB SSD. So, the platter wins here.

Consumers Can Exploit the Battle

Let’s not misunderstand here. Current SATAII technology is more than enough and capable of handling the needs of most every type of PC user, especially those on a budget like gamers. Gaming performance isn’t any better on either technology other than the fact games load up faster on SSDs. And, it doesn’t hurt to wait another minute for the system to load. If all the waiting and slow performance botthers you, there is another route you should know about.

As a consumer, I say let’s not participate in this battle picking sides. Not just yet. Why not use the two in such a way it benefits you? Until we see cheaper, larger capacity Solid State Drives, let’s use the hard drives we have now for our major file storage and beef up our computing experience with a good Solid State Boot Drive for our main operating system.

This means, picking up and installing a more affordable 40 to 64GB SSD with any controller other than a JMicron controller. Install your Operating System and use it for your main system drive. Your system will spring to life in ways you didn’t know were possible. Boot times and transfer rates will definitely improve system response. Expect a renewed sense of productivity if you’re in an office environment simply because they are faster. And, it didn’t cost you but around $85 to $150 to speed up your computer.

Did I mention these also work in many notebooks and lighten them up as well?