FAQ The battle of HDD and SSD. What is the difference and which one to choose? Different SSDs: is there a difference? How different are hdds from ssd drives

Of course, this is the main difference between them, but not the only one.

Types of computer memory

Memory in a computer is the place where data is stored. Memory is divided into ephemeral(such as RAM or RAM) that retains data only as long as the computer is running, and permanent(non-volatile) that retains data even after power is turned off.

It can also be divided by device, or rather, by type. Can be distinguished magnetic media(e.g. hard drives HDD, SSHD), optical, semiconductor And flash memory.

Differences between HDDs and SSDs

Carrier design

The main difference that first comes to mind is the internal structure.

Hard drives HDD are magnetic storage media. To read them, a special, movable head is used, which moves along the round magnetic plates used for storing data, and thus searches for files.

SSD media is classified as flash memory built only from NAND Flash cells. This allows you to read and write files on the SSD much faster - all due to the fact that reading occurs without the participation of moving elements. Moving parts must arrive at a file location and cannot be present in multiple locations at the same time (which makes reading or writing multiple files even slower).

Loudness during operation and resistance to damage

Movable elements are also responsible for the appearance of noise during the operation of the disk. Without these moving parts, SSDs are silent. In addition, they are also more resistant to damage (again, this is due to the absence of mechanical parts that can move, for example, in the event of a fall).

The AHCI protocol was created for hard drives HDD, at a time when no one was waiting for the appearance of faster media. Later SSDs had a huge potential in terms of data flow, however, it was severely limited by an outdated protocol.

For new fast hard drives, a new NVMe protocol was created. Its capabilities are shown in the table below:

We compared the performance of HDDs and SSDs. Let me remind you that in synthetic applications, the SSD turned out to be significantly faster. However, the theoretical advantage does not always manifest itself in practice. In this part, we will look at how much faster an SSD is in everyday work and, most importantly, whether it is worth trying to replace your hard drive with a newfangled drive.

Comparison of performance of clean and working systems

However, since we are talking about “real” life, we will start with one interesting aspect, namely, comparing the performance of a clean system and a system with a large number of installed programs. After all, it's no secret that a freshly installed system without installed programs always works very quickly, and tests are filmed on such systems. But we work on completely different systems: in which many applications are open, there are resident programs and modules, and the operation of the OS itself is far from ideal. I tried to simulate such a system and compare how much worse the performance of test participants would be in it.

For comparison, the results were taken from the preliminary run, when I determined which applications to install and how to remove tests. Therefore, the system turned out to be slightly different in terms of software composition, respectively, the test results may differ slightly from those given below, in the main test. Measurements were taken on a Seagate 5400.6 drive.

Let me remind you how the numbers were obtained. At startup, the time was measured from turning on the laptop (that is, it included the BIOS test time, this time is always 4 seconds) until the blue welcome screen appears, the desktop appears, the hourglass next to the cursor disappears and, finally, the time when the system ceases to actively work with hard drive. Therefore, four numbers are indicated in the results.

When exiting sleep mode, we measured the time from system startup to the appearance of the Welcome message and a window with a user icon, and ended the measurement when the system stopped actively working with the hard drive.

When going to sleep and turning off, everything is simple the time is measured from pressing a button on the screen until the moment when the laptop turns off (the indicators go out).

The test was carried out in the following order the system turns on, then enters sleep mode, wakes it up and turns off. This was done two or three times and then two more passes after taking other tests.

The scatter of data was everywhere, and somewhat strange. So, for example, when measuring the time to go to sleep for the first time, it was 13 seconds, then about 10-11. As a rule, the time of others for measurements also dropped a little, for example, the first start 1.03, the second and further 57 seconds. By the way, in cases where the results are unstable, I tried to give the most different figure in brackets. I emphasize that these are the most different results from the average.

Let me also remind you (I already talked about this in the first part) that Windows 7 is better optimized in terms of working with the hard drive. After the desktop appears, you can work with the system, although it continues to load data from the disk. XP in such a situation is practically uncontrollable, while the “seven” adequately responds to commands, although it takes them a little longer. The same with the exit from sleep mode: although the system continues to work with the disk for a long time, it can still be used.

So, let's see how the system performance will change after a large number of applications are installed in it, incl. applications with resident modules (antivirus, Nokia software, etc.). By the way, they made the partition significantly heavier - from about 17 GB (clean Windows 7) to 32.5 GB.

The start has become slower by an average of 10 seconds, but the disk is still spinning for a very long time - two minutes instead of one. Seven knows how to optimize the boot process, unlike XP, which tries to load "everything at once" and goes crazy (this is just a textbook case when the disk works, but the data transfer from it is minimal).

Going into hibernation is predictably longer: after all, quite a lot of programs that I installed use different agents and resident modules, plus, they probably just litter the system. Nevertheless, the difference is impressive the system falls asleep twice as long. Shutdown has also become longer because you need to send a command to close to all resident programs and wait for a response. I would like to draw your attention to the fact that when closing programs, a window did not appear that the system could not stop this or that program, everything closed itself. In my opinion, this difference is critical, because all this time you have to wait for the system to finish working to assemble the laptop. 10 seconds is to get up and collect the rest of things, 31 to get up, get ready and wait twenty seconds.

Thus, a clean system performs basic actions about twice as fast as a working one. The difference is especially noticeable when you install the system from scratch, and then install applications on top of it. According to my feelings, various kinds of optimizations (defragmentation, moving data to the beginning of the disk, etc.) help a little, but it is difficult to achieve a significant difference. There is a more radical way: manually disable the start of some programs and modules operating system, then the loading time will be reduced.

File copy speed

Transferring and copying files is perhaps one of the main tasks, where you can clearly see how fast this or that disk is. In addition, one of the most noticeable: here, most often, the user sits in front of the laptop and waits for the copying to be completed. In addition, these figures can be used to indirectly estimate the download speed of programs. The data is taken from the main tests of the Seagate 5400.6 drive. Here and below, C and D denote partitions on the drive.

Let me remind you that resident programs are running in the working system, including antivirus. The movie (single file) was copied in almost exactly the same way, when copying archives the difference is already noticeable, for documents the difference is even more noticeable. Moreover, on the working system, a difference appeared, from where and where the files are copied, it is also noticeable for all schemes. We will not draw any conclusions about the unzipping process yet, because. very large spread on the working system.

Finally, a very strange and incomprehensible situation with deleting files. In this situation, it is difficult for me to draw conclusions, below we will look at the results of other participants. Moreover, the situation was repeated, but with incomprehensible quirks, sometimes erasing took 20 minutes, sometimes 30. The conductor erases everything quickly, in seconds.

Comparison of hard drives and SSDs for work tasks

Well, let's see how they behave in real applications participants in our testing, and whether the SSD will be able to maintain its advantage over hard drives.

Creating and Deploying a Disk Image

As a first test, I could not resist and took what I had to do when testing creating and deploying archived images of a disk partition. The test is performed outside the operating system, plus archiving ... In general, let's see who is faster here.

7200.2 is slightly faster than 5400.6, for some reason it is significantly ahead when archiving. SSD twice or more faster than hard disks. He is especially good at deploying a clean system, here he is almost three times faster.

Starting up, shutting down the system, and waking up and waking up from sleep mode

Now let's see how much time it takes to start and shutdown the operating system on various media. For some reason, many consider the system start time to be the most important indicator. It seems to me that these are relics of the times when people worked in the office for stationary computers and turned them off at night (however, this practice is common now). Indeed, standby and hibernation modes are not needed in this case, the shutdown speed is not important, because by starting the shutdown process you can go home. It remains only the loading time, because. having come to work and started the computer, you have to wait until you can play solitaire.

When it comes to laptops, and specifically about working with them, things are a little different. I personally turn off my laptop about once every two weeks, when the system starts to misbehave from constant sleeps and hibernations. And even then, more often than not “I rebooted the laptop”, but “the laptop rebooted” (and goodbye data from running applications). In all other cases, I put the laptop in standby mode (when it is running on mains) or hibernation (when running on battery, so as not to waste it). Accordingly, for me, the time to enter and exit sleep mode is more important. In addition, this mode has two important advantages over shutting down: firstly, the system starts up much faster, and secondly, everything desired applications are already open, and the work is exactly where you finished last time. This is very convenient and saves significantly more time than switching from HDDs to SSDs.

However, we have an article just about comparing them, and that's what we'll do. To begin with, let's compare how a clean system started here.

When starting the system, the SSD is significantly faster. Moreover, as I already noted, the disk access indicator does not light up all the time (unlike the HDD), i.e. not the SSD is the bottleneck, the system spends some time to "digest" the data. The first time he failed for unknown reasons, the rest of the time the system started in the same time 24 seconds. SSD is faster in other disciplines, somewhere significantly, somewhere not very much, if we consider that a third is “not very”.

In the struggle between disks, 7200.2 finally took a little lead. As you can see, with it, the system will start and exit hibernation a little faster. Moreover, the advantage is stable, albeit small - you will save 2-4 seconds.

Let's see what happens if we use a working system.

I’ll make a reservation right away what “long” means - it is more than two and a half minutes. On various occasions, this time felt to be anywhere from three and a half to five minutes. But disk activity has almost no effect on operation.

Hard drives come very close, it is impossible to notice the difference in performance. Quite possible, new hard drive at 7200 rpm will give a little top scores, but how much? Give me a sec? In this case, the spread of results sometimes reached 5-6 seconds. That is, as you can see, on a working system, the difference in disk performance is leveled. Perhaps it will manifest itself in some specific tasks (they say that in some cases of video encoding a disc is very important), but when performing standard tasks, the difference in numbers is insignificant.

The SSD starts up quickly, goes into hibernation quickly (plus, which is important, at the time when the system writes data to go into hibernation, the laptop can already be packed in a bag, no need to wait), it turns out ... not much faster in numbers, but that's all for me Equally, it seemed that with him the system works faster. Plus, if the hard drive is constantly spinning and a crunch is already heard from work, then data is read from the SSD in portions and with pauses. Shutting down the system is about the same everywhere, but I think that this process is just not so dependent on disk subsystem.

We will summarize all the data in a single table. For each drive, the first column is a clean system, the second is a working one.

Everywhere the time has approximately doubled. And it is exactly twice regardless of whether the initial value is small or large. Therefore, if you want to get the maximum fast system, then it is necessary not only to upgrade the drives, but also to pay attention to optimizing the system itself, and most importantly, to select applications that will work. It is much cheaper and can also bring good dividends.

File Copy Tests

Well, let's move on to the most, in my opinion, interesting tests data copy tests. We are interested in these tests for two reasons: firstly, this is exactly the case when the speed of the disk subsystem determines the time spent, and secondly, these data can be used to indirectly determine how quickly applications will start and files will be opened: after all, these are also operations reading from disk. Using them, you can evaluate the speed of disks and SSDs on a daily basis, when, for example, they launch an application or open a file.

Let me remind you that files were copied from one disk partition to another, i.e. The disk both read and wrote data.

* This is from D to C. C to D is copied for 3.45
** This is in C. On D it will unzip for 5.11.
*** explorer erases everything in a second or two

Honestly, I don’t know why I got such numbers when erasing files on 5400.6. Moreover, the results jump very significantly. I have an idea that software is to blame (for example, antivirus), but, on the other hand, the system is identical for all drives. Also, I could not explain why the 7200.2 copy is faster from C to D, while the 5400.6 is vice versa. Finally, it is not clear why there is such a difference in copying archives from SSDs.

In general, it can be seen that for all drives the speed depends on the size of the files, although for SSD there is almost no difference between a movie and a set of archives (only a strange dependence on where it is copied appeared). The closer the process of reading and writing to the linear, the higher the speed. In absolute terms, the SSD drive leads by a wide margin: we are talking about three to four times superiority most often. Everything that is called "flies". In the most difficult category, a set of documents, the gap is even more significant.

By the way, since we are talking about comparison, please note that 5400.6 copies a large volume much faster, almost a minute. Yes, and unzipping it is on average faster (although when unzipping, the time jumped a lot). In copying files, 7200.2 failed to get ahead, although I expected it to.

However, the schemes under consideration have a peculiarity: data is read from the disk and immediately written to it from one partition to another. But what if we look at a cleaner case: data is only read or only written? For this we have created virtual disk V random access memory computer and check how different the numbers are when working with a known very fast drive in RAM.

Figures are given in film/archive/documents format

The results of copying data from a virtual disk to a physical one lead to the darkest suspicions: is writing consistently faster than reading? It seemed to me that this does not happen. Moreover, in this test, the SSD even loses the 5400.

If we compare the data with the table above and accept (well, all of a sudden) that caching has nothing to do with it, then we get funny data: how much faster is it to first copy the entire file to RAM and then write it to disk compared to simple copying from disk to disk. A movie on 5400.6 using a virtual disk was copied in 12 + 5 = 17 seconds (i.e., it was first read in its entirety, and then it was completely written), and when it was copied from partition D to partition C, it took 26 seconds, i.e. . we lost 9 seconds out of 26. When copying documents, the difference is generally more than twice. I would suggest that this difference is due to the fact that the disks "chase heads" back and forth when reading and writing. It remains to understand why the SSD in the scheme with copying through a virtual disk is also twice as fast, it seems to have nothing to reposition.

Well, that concludes our study of file copying speed. Let's look at another aspect where it is very important for us how fast our disk is. Namely, the installation and operation of applications.

Installing and launching applications

So, let's see how big the difference is in everyday work, namely, in such tasks as installing and running programs. In principle, I tried to pick up on the one hand applications that are used relatively often, and on the other large packages, where the difference in installation time is significant, and which require a relatively long time for breakfast. I remind you that readers can offer their own options for applications for tests.

Since most of the tests on the 5400.6 were not run, the comparison will mainly be between one hard drive and an SSD. In general, as we can see, the advantage of SSD is two to three times. True, there are some exceptions, for example, Acronis was installed at about the same time, and the difference when installing Office is not so great. Either when installing these applications, work with the disk does not play a significant role, or the application is installed in such a way that the SSD works inefficiently. Pay attention to games. When installing Crysis Warhead, the difference is small, moreover, the space among the hard drives is also very strangely distributed. But HawX demonstrates an almost classic scheme.

Let's look at launching applications. In other materials, I will once again try to retest the disks in this discipline already on a working system. However, on new system everything starts easily.

As you can see, in most cases, the advantage of the SSD has been preserved. Nevertheless, we will continue testing in terms of the speed of applications and invite readers to make suggestions: what exactly and in what modes to test.

conclusions

Well, let's move on to the conclusions, and see who is in the lead and in what categories.

Speed

Key Takeaway: In the vast majority of cases, SSDs are significantly faster than traditional hard drives. The advantage is two to three times this is a lot, the gap is simply huge. Thus, the results of synthetic testing were generally confirmed, although there the advantage of SSD was even more significant. However, this is normal: the operating system and many other factors contribute to smoothing out the difference in speed. various types drives.

When applied in real life and in real tasks, SSD, as can be seen above, gives a significant gain. So big that measurements are not needed: it is very clearly visible and "by eye". Applications start and run faster, the operating system also accelerates significantly. Having transferred the system to an SSD, you immediately feel that it began to respond much faster than before. True, there is also a relative minus: if earlier it was possible to turn on, for example, copying and go do other things, now it ends too quickly for you to have time to switch. I personally immediately noticed that the system began to hibernate faster and exit it much faster. Moreover, the difference is visible, as they say, to the naked eye. Launching applications has become faster, but it’s not so easy to “catch” it, because. for the most part, they've been up and running fairly quickly before.

In general, if the speed of work is critical for you, and all other considerations (see below), including the ultra-high price, are insignificant, then the SSD will eliminate one of the known bottlenecks in the system.

Size

As for the size, in absolute terms, the SSD loses a lot. At the moment, even 128 GB models cost a lot of money, and besides, the price is very dependent on capacity: the more space, the more expensive (and much more expensive) the drive. At the same time, a 500-gigabyte hard drive can be bought very inexpensively.

But do you need a lot of space? In principle, 128 gigabytes should be enough for working system especially if you have home computer or external hard disk where you can throw archives and multimedia data. Well, if your work is not related to something resource-intensive: for example, active video editing. A few work applications, a text archive, a mail database, some music and no (or very little) games and movies. And when purchasing a drive with a capacity of 64 GB, you need to prepare for the economy mode. When I test the OS with installed applications already occupied 35 GB, and at the same time I did not install everything I wanted. There will be very little space left to work.

If we are talking about a home multimedia laptop, and even the only one (that is, without external media for the archive), then an SSD will definitely not work: its capacity will quickly cease to be enough. In this case, the SSD will bring a speed boost, but you will have to have an additional external hard drive for data storage. However, I would venture to suggest that for most home users, the use of an SSD is simply redundant.

Reliability

Another huge plus of SSD: increased reliability in everyday work. After all, it is insensitive to shock and vibration, and if you often carry a laptop with you, shock resistance is a huge plus. True, I was lucky with laptops despite repeated falls, the disk did not fail in any of them. But all my laptops were protected hard drive, usually with an accelerometer that turns it off when it falls this could play a role. And here external drive I dropped it once (unsuccessfully pulled the wire), after which a faulty area appeared on it. But he worked fine after that. However, this is my personal example, stories when, after falling laptop hard the disk stopped working or lost part of the data on the Internet quite a lot.

An SSD has another operational plus you don’t have to worry about shaking the laptop at all. For example, when the laptop goes into hibernation (and at this time it is actively writing to the disk), you can already close the lid and pack it in a bag. On laptops with a hard drive, this is highly discouraged you can disable it.

However, it was not in vain that I made a reservation about everyday work: after all, the long-term reliability of SSDs is in question. Cheap first-generation SSDs (on the same EEE PC) are already starting to fail slowly. I think expensive and more new SSD last longer, but for how long? Unlike hard drives with their hard-to-predict mechanical wear, SSDs have well-defined aging criteria associated with disk writes.

Price

The most difficult aspect, because there are modern fast SSD very expensive. About 3-4 times more expensive than a hard drive, which is also three times more capacious. Those. how much faster, how much smaller and how much more expensive. Is the game worth the candle? In my opinion, it is worth it if you are actively working with a laptop. The higher speed of the laptop allows you to save precious minutes of life and nerve cells that are wasted with exclamations of “Why is it all so slow?”. Do not forget about the greater reliability of the drive and the safety of data. In this sense, even for a working system, an SSD can make work more comfortable, and the increased reliability of the drive is also worth something. As for general and home use, buying an SSD is worth it if you are ready to put up with the difference in price: the performance will pleasantly surprise you.

A lot of people ask the question - "why do you need an ssd?". Some 5-6 years ago, there was simply no alternative to a conventional hard drive (HDD). He coped with all possible tasks: storing huge volumes of video files is easy, recording hundreds of gigabytes of music is not a problem, remembering the contents of thousands of small files was also not something supernatural for him.

So it was until a certain point, or rather until 2009, until the technology for creating SSD drives appeared. And then what was the point of creating some kind of “other” technology, instead of a long-proven one, you ask? I’ll make a reservation right away, if you think that there is no difference between them, or it is insignificant, you are mistaken.

As it turned out, the hard disk has a number of shortcomings that cannot be solved by simply improving the technology for creating HDDs. This suggested a fundamentally different approach to creating a device capable of storing huge amounts of information, and most importantly, quickly writing them down and also quickly making it possible to read information from itself.

The impossibility of further improvement of HDD creation technology is primarily determined by it. Namely, those same "pancakes" that, rotating at great speed, create a noticeable vibration (for the test, try to take a working "screw" in your hands). In addition, the read head is so close to these disks that the slightest blow to the case can lead to bad sectors.

For the same reason, HDD is better do not work in any position other than horizontal. Of course, it cannot be said that hard drives are not improving at all now: manufacturers are constantly “playing” with a different number of “pancakes” inside, hard drives themselves are becoming more and more high-speed (high-speed), read and write speeds have also increased compared to old models.

And their capacity has long crossed the "psychological" mark of 1 TB (1000 GB). But, there is nowhere else to go. Even modern HDD everyone also does not like low temperatures (their “comfort zone” is between +18 and +45 degrees), they are afraid of shocks, heat up during operation, create noise and take up a lot of space in the system unit. And here is the main difference SSD drive a - it has no moving parts at all.

That is, absolutely no mechanics, but according to the principle of operation, it is very similar to a flash drive, only many times better (more reliable). In this sense, it is quite rightly called - " solid state drive". It has many more advantages than disadvantages. For example, low power consumption, since there are no motors and electromagnets in the design of the device.

SSDs are not afraid of rough handling (accidental drops, for example, to the floor from a height), they are more resistant to sudden changes in temperature - that is, they can work stably even in frost (up to -10). An SSD makes no noise, at all. It can be recommended to various recording studios or simply to people who, during their work, it is important that there are no extraneous noises and vibrations.

With HDD, of course, everything is not so “rosy”. Let's say that the work of one hard drive is difficult to catch with the "naked" ear, but imagine what will happen if you install 10 hard drives in one computer! And each of them will from time to time publish some extraneous sound- for example, clicks, which is inevitable for hard drives (at the beginning of a read operation, or when exiting sleep mode, etc.).

The small size of the SSD is another significant plus (it can be put instead of a drive, for example), since such devices are often installed in laptops, and even netbooks, where the thickness of the case is only a couple of centimeters. And even in a regular PC, after SSD installations more space for wiring inside system block and, theoretically, ventilation should improve.

Oh yes, I forgot to say, SSDs practically do not heat up during operation, and if they do heat up, then this does not affect their work in any way, so you can forget about additional cooling. And the fattest plus of SSD is the best speed of reading/writing information. It is many times higher here than even on the fastest HDD. A regular hard drive can handle files fairly easily. big size, such as HD movies.

Even if it is almost completely filled with such files, it will not be difficult for him to open any of them in a second. But, try to upload several hundred small files (pictures, text documents) and you will be unpleasantly surprised. After some time, the hard drive will become "pensive", it will freeze, and the write speed will drop. The problem lies in such a phenomenon as "fragmentation".

The fact is that the hard drive writes to magnetic disks sequentially into each cell, and the cells, in turn, are combined into sectors. Let's say you recorded 200 photos on it, then edited them, and even deleted some of them altogether. At the same time, suppose that the hard drive was already almost filled to capacity with something else.

It turns out that in place of the deleted photo, there will be a kind of “empty” place (cliff). Over time, when you want to upload a couple of hundred more photos to this disk, instead of forming a single chain, information will begin to be written a little bit into these “empty places”.

As a result, when you try to find your photo, the read head of the hard drive will start randomly rushing around the entire area of ​​\u200b\u200bthe “pancake”, from sector to sector, collecting your file (photo) piece by piece, because there is no clear sequence, the file seems to be scattered all over the hard drive.

To eliminate this phenomenon, even at the stage of developing the OS (operating system) Windows, in particular, a utility was developed that is designed to carry out the defragmentation process. That is, the connection of various particles of one file together. It is recommended to periodically perform a defragmentation operation on all hard drives. regardless of their volume - to speed up the computer (unless, of course, you have the OS on this hard drive).

So, on the SSD there is no need to defragment. It is in the case of an SSD that you don’t have to do anything instead of a defragmentation procedure, literally. Even smart Windows 7 disables this feature (only for this volume) as soon as it sees that an SSD drive has been installed in the computer. In the SSD, in addition to NAND memory modules, a controller is installed that allows you to write any data to any sector of memory, after which it instantly displays information.

These were all advantages, but, oddly enough, SSDs also have disadvantages. Any SSD drive has a limited number of write (rewrite) cycles of memory blocks.

If you copy, then delete, then copy gigabytes of information to your SSD every day, you will be able to state its death pretty quickly. However, as mentioned above, SSDs are equipped with a controller that also takes care of evenly distributing information across all memory blocks, instead of concentrating on one block (which will lead to its breakdown).

Thus, with the use of all technologies, it was possible to increase the number of write/rewrite cycles to an average of 10,000 times, which is ≈8–13 years of work, which, frankly, is a very worthy result, and there is no point in demanding more. Let's even take 5 years, after which time the average SSD drive bought today will most likely already be a museum exhibit, or something like that.

However, long-term operation is guaranteed, provided that there is no daily rewriting of tens of gigabytes of information - an HDD is better suited for these purposes. The second disadvantage of the SSD is its low maximum capacity (2TB models have already appeared) and the high cost per gigabyte compared to the HDD. How to find out how much one gigabyte of memory costs?

Yes, just divide the cost of the device by its capacity = the price of one gigabyte. This is all approximately, of course, however, even according to such calculations, the difference in the cost of one gigabyte of memory can be 10 or more times! Most people take an SSD to install the OS on it, and for this, an SSD with a capacity of 60 GB or more will do.

As you can see, the difference in the design of these two types of devices is enormous. I think, after reading this article carefully, everyone will decide for himself what is better - HDD or SSD.

First SSD, or solid state drives using flash memory, appeared in 1995, and were used exclusively in the military and aerospace fields. The huge cost at that time was compensated by the unique characteristics that allow the operation of such disks in aggressive environments over a wide temperature range.

If your fear of flash memory wear and tear reaches panic levels, then it's worth looking at new (and expensive) technologies in the form of storage formats. 3D NAND. And if no jokes, then this is the future SSD– high speed and high reliability are combined here. Such a drive is suitable even for important server databases, since the write resource here reaches petabyte, and the number of errors is minimal.

In a separate group I would like to highlight SSD interface drives PCI-E. He possess high speed read and write ( 1000-2000 Mbps), and on average more expensive than other categories. If the focus is on speed, then this the best choice. The disadvantage is that it occupies a universal PCIe slot; motherboards of compact formats can have only one PCIe slot.

Out of competition - SSD with NVMe logical interface, the reading speed of which exceeds 2000 Mb / s. Compared to SSD compromise logic AHCI, has much greater queue depth and concurrency. high market value, and best performance- the choice of enthusiasts or professionals.

Now more and more users are thinking about switching from HDD to SSD. This issue is especially acute for owners of mid-priced gaming systems, since in the budget segment a hard drive looks preferable, and in the top-end users can easily afford a capacious and fast solid-state drive. In the mainstream one, you have to think about which part of the system to strengthen with a limited budget: take more powerful processor or a video card, put more RAM or buy an SSD.

Therefore, for testing, we used a stand based on an overclocked 4-core. Don't share anywhere motherboard, 16 GB Patriot Viper 4 RAM kit in DDR4-3200 mode and graphics card .

Test stand:

• AMD Ryzen 5 1400
• MSI X370 SLI Plus
• be quiet! Silent Loop 240mm
• 2 x 8GB DDR4-3400 Patriot Viper 4
• Colorful GTX 1060 SI-6G
• Kingston SSDNow KC400 (SKC400S37/256G)
• Seagate IronWolf ST2000VN004 2TB
• be quiet! Dark Power Pro 11 850W
• be quiet! Pure Base 600 Window Orange
• AOC U2879VF

To begin with, we note that this SSD combines Toshiba A19 MLC memory chips, 1 GB of cache memory and a Phison S10 4-core controller. It is opposed by a 2-terabyte HDD of the Seagate IronWolf series with a spindle speed of 5900 rpm and 64 MB of cache. Both use SATA interface 3.0.

In synthetic tests, the advantage of the model of the GOODRAM Iridium Pro series raises absolutely no questions. When working with incompressible data in CrystalDiskMark sequential read and write speeds were 564 and 530 MB/s, respectively. With a small-block load with 4 KiB files, the figures reach 34 and 110 MB / s. The competitor's sequential speeds are much lower, at 137 and 121 MB/s, respectively. And with small files, everything is very bad, like all hard drives.

Working with compressible data in a test ATTO Disk Benchmark also brings the solid state drive to the forefront: if the hard drive has read and write rates in the region of 130-140 MB / s, then for SSDs they reach 530-560 MB / s.

In terms of data access time and other tests, the solid state drive also looks much more interesting. You can see more in the video below. And we move on to gaming benchmarks.

Just to start, let's clarify two points. First. Previously, we ran almost all tests once or twice in order to load the necessary objects, and only then turn on the recording and conduct control measurements. Now the testing took place from the first time, as if we launched the game and immediately rushed into battle.

Second. It is well known that an SSD speeds up the loading of games, but it is not always known exactly how much. We also decided to measure this moment at the beginning of each test.

So let's start with Assassin's Creed Origins at a very high graphics preset. The benchmark launch wait time was just over 4 seconds with an SSD, and with an HDD, we had to wait more than 14 seconds. But the test itself was not particularly revealing, since both systems produced approximately the same results. And the Frame Time graph in the case of the hard drive was even better.

When switching from HDD to SSD, benchmark load time Ghost Recon Wildlands, reduced from 24 to 11 seconds or 55%. During the test, the frame time graph in both cases was approximately the same, but still the system with SSD gave out 1 FPS more at the minimum frame rate.

Very interesting results were found in WATCH_DOGS 2 at high profile graphics settings. Firstly, with HDD it takes almost 4 times longer to load the game: 27 seconds versus 8. Secondly, on the first drive, the system with a hard drive noticeably slows down: friezes reach 6 FPS, so it’s unpleasant to play. But there are no such problems with SSD, because the minimum figure was 56 frames / s, and the Frame Time graph was smoother.

After that, we turned around, reset the counters and again drove along the same street. And since all the main objects were already loaded, there was not much difference between the indicators: the minimum speed was 53 - 55 FPS, and the average - 61.

Online multiplayer Battlefield 1 at ultra settings, it loads almost twice as fast on an SSD: 21 seconds versus 41. There is no difference in terms of the minimum indicator, but the frame time graph is better on a system with an SSD, so the smoothness and comfort of the gameplay should be higher. And in terms of average frequency, it was ahead: 75 versus 69 FPS.

Developers Need for Speed ​​Payback they approached the level loading in a very original way: instead of a splash screen, they used a stretched cutscene, so it was not possible to determine the loading time. We did not feel much difference in performance, although there is still a slight advantage of a bundle with an SSD: 73 vs. 70 fps at the minimum speed and 106 vs. 104 at the average.

If you replace the hard drive with a solid state drive, then the benchmark launch time gta v reduced from 31 to 14 seconds, or almost 55%. But we did not record a noticeable difference in the Frame Time graphs. Speed ​​indicators also turned out to be the same: 64 FPS with drawdowns up to 45.

A more interesting picture is seen in Third Witcher at maximum presets. First, the loading time is reduced from 37 to 14 seconds. Secondly, the Frame Time graph becomes smoother: even when we ran in the opposite direction, large drops were observed in the system with the HDD, although the objects should have already been loaded. As a result, we have a big advantage in terms of the minimum frequency: 45 versus 55 FPS in favor of a bundle with an SSD.

The benchmark turned out to be exemplary Rise of the Tomb Raider at very high settings. The reduction in startup time from 12 to 5 seconds is no longer particularly surprising, but the Geothermal Valley scene deserves close attention: when using the HDD, some objects are missing or loaded in the direction of the camera, so the system is less loaded and produces a higher frame rate. With an SSD, all objects are in place, so the speed is lower. As a result, we took the results of the "Syria" scene for the graph.

In the benchmark Middle-earth Shadow of War with a high profile, the highest gap in download speed was observed: 6 seconds versus 22. Interestingly, the test itself was faster on a system with an SSD, so I had to tinker with synchronization a bit. The final results recorded parity in the average frequency and a 50% gap in the minimum frequency in favor of a bundle with a solid-state drive.

Ends a test session PlayerUnknown's Battlegrounds at high settings. We stopped the loading timer only when all the objects were loaded completely. The acceleration from using an SSD was 33%. And in terms of speed performance, I was pleased with the 6% increase in the minimum frame rate. Parity is fixed on the average.

Game loading time comparison:

As a result, we see that replacing a hard drive with a solid state drive leads to a decrease in game loading time by an average of 59%, in other words: loading is more than 2 times faster. In some cases, the frame time graph becomes smoother and the minimum FPS increases, that is, the comfort of the gameplay improves.

Comparison of the minimum and average frame rates in games:

The average increase in the minimum frequency was 88%, but all thanks to WATCH_DOGS 2. If we exclude this result, we get 12%. But the average speed increased by less than 1.5%, which can be attributed to the measurement error.

Results

Thus, does the comfort of the gaming process increase from replacing the HDD with an SSD? Our answer: Yes! Is such a replacement critical and mandatory for the average gaming PC? Here to whom as.

After all, you can still play with the HDD, although in some projects it may take time to load all the objects at first. Therefore, if it is the level of performance that is important, then it is better to direct free finances to a more powerful processor, a newer video card or more fast RAM. And if you are interested in the comfort of the game and the operation of the computer as a whole, including loading the operating system, starting programs, deploying updates, etc., then an SSD will be a very useful purchase.

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