Solid state drives (SSDs) are storage devices that use interconnected memory chips versus magnetic platters, as you would find in normal hard drives (HDDs). The initial cost of SDDs came at a high price but they are now reaching a very respectable balance in terms of cost and storage, which makes an investment into these devices a no-brainer for businesses.
Other great benefits can be gained when using SSDs versus HDDs:
- Less noise (especially helpful when used in server farms)
- Durability (less moving parts mean less components that can be damaged)
- Speed (boot time, better transfers, and just about everything else is faster)
Now the real kicker is that normal hard drives, being mechanical, tend to have a shorter lifespan so considering that backing up your data is one of the essentials in this tech checklist for startups, it makes sense to spend a little extra to gain a superior product.
That’s not to say, however, that the common issues that happen to hard drives don’t happen to solid state drives. Data loss with SDDs, like HDDs, can come about via electrical damage, corruption due to software or OS issues, and natural disasters (like fire). The good news is that there is secure SSD data recovery available, which means you can prevent data loss from destroying your enterprise.
So, there may still be some hesitation as to why or why you may not want to roll out SSDs in your business, since the hardware you have now obviously is doing the job.
Let’s touch on some of the previous points in further detail and apply business to each:
- Increased speed from the SSD (come can be up to 8x faster than HDDs), meaning that applications run extremely efficient so rendering video, transferring files, editing documents, remote access, and every other programs you (and employees) use in business will be that much faster – which means more is going to get done.
- Increased durability because of different internal parts means there is less of a chance of accidentally damaging company products from heat, drops, magnetic exposure, and short-circuits with electricity – which means less money being spent repairing or purchasing new tech.
- Less noise and heat means that if you are operating servers from your location you are not only providing customers with the increased read/write speeds but less heat and noise on your end means less electricity being used to power the servers.
Additional examples that demystify the differences can be found in this Slideshare.
So for a rather small investment to upgrade hardware from HDDs to SSDs, your business gains many benefits. Speed will be the immediate thing you’d notice but then you will also see the benefit in the long-term, as you are less likely to be in need of purchasing new hardware that flakes out due to mechanical issues. In all, solid state drives are a money saver and are well worth the investment.