Hard drives: HDD and SSD - what's the difference?

Small, fast, expensive: The alternative to the classic HDD is the SSD. Although both types look similar, they have differences. In this article you will find out which these are and whether you should prefer a solid state disc (SSD) or a hard drive disc (HDD).

HDD or SSD: differences in functionality

The two hard disk types HDD and SSD have a completely different function:

• The classic HDD consists of one or usually several magnetic disks and one reading head each. The magnetic disks rotate during operation. The read head (attached to a flywheel) moves over the discs and reads out the stored data.
• An SSD, on the other hand, consists of many flash memories, such as those built into USB sticks. That means: No mechanical parts are installed in an SSD.
• For those who are particularly interested: We will explain the functionality of the SSD and HDD in detail in separate articles.

HDD vs. SSD: Advantages of the SSD

For some years now, the SSD seems to have slowly but surpassed the classic HDD. This is mainly due to the many advantages:

• The SSD has no mechanical parts, which makes it significantly more robust than the HDD. It usually copes with falls without any problems, while with an HDD you can expect defects and data loss.
• Due to the lack of mechanical parts, SSDs are almost silent. An HDD, on the other hand, hums during operation. This is particularly noticeable in notebooks and PCs with a thin housing.
• The most important advantage of the SSD: It works much faster than the classic hard drive. As a result, PCs and notebooks start up noticeably faster with an SSD and up to twice as fast as with classic hard drives. Files and programs open up to four times faster.
• Last but not least, the SSD is lighter than the HDD. It is therefore particularly suitable for mobile devices. In addition, it is usually more efficient, so it consumes significantly less electricity. This also makes them interesting for mobile devices, since the battery life is extended.

HDD vs. SSD: Advantages of the HDD

In addition to the many advantages, there are also some dangers lurking with SSDs. We have summarized here which are these and where the HDD is still ahead:

• An HDD is currently (still) a lot cheaper than the SSD. Nevertheless, you can also save a lot with the new hard drive type, as our price-performance ranking shows.
• HDDs also offer significantly more storage space. Up to 8 TB are possible here, while with current SSDs it ends after 2 TB at the latest.
• In the case of data loss, there is usually still hope for HDDs: The data can often still be read using special tools. This is rarely possible with an SSD.
• Therefore our recommendation: The SSHD combines the advantages of an HDD with those of the fast SSD.

In the next article we will show you the most popular SSD hard drives in comparison.