What is SSD screw or solid state drive. What is SSD Screw or Solid State Drive Pros and Cons of SSD and HDD
Hi admin! ? Bought solid state drive SSD Kingston SSDNow V300, came home and opened a beautiful box, and there was only the SSD itself, no screws, no adapter bracket from 2.5 to 3.5-inch form factor to install the SSD in the bay for hard drives my system unit! I called the store where I bought the solid-state drive, they said that in fact, this bracket needs to be bought separately, I had to go again, why they didn't say right away, I don't know.
I fixed the SSD in this bracket, which looks like a simple slide, but the first time it was wrong, I could not connect the power cable and data cable to the SSD. Fastening solid sSD drive in the sled, it is necessary in such a way that the power and interface connectors protrude slightly from the bracket, only then it will be possible to connect the power cable and the SATA data cable to them.
In the end, I still won and installed the SSD in the system unit correctly. But after a couple of days I found out that it was possible to simply fix the SSD to the side of the system unit using ordinary vinyl clamps. In short, I thought everything was simple, but it turned out not easy.
But that's not all, you will laugh, but I also had to go to the computer store for the third time for a SATA III interface cable (up to 6 Gb / s), and only then I already installed the SSD drive in my system unit and transferred my Windows 7.
It would be nice to have a small instruction with pictures on your site so that users do not ride like me.
That's right friends, in some cases solid-state drives are sold without a special adapter bracket from 2.5- to 3.5-inch form factor, then you need to buy it separately. All this must be checked with the seller before purchasing an SSD. If your SSD does not come with an adapter that you need to buy it separately, it costs around 150 rubles and will sell it to you in a special bag, which will also contain special screws for attaching the SSD to the bracket itself, and attaching the bracket with SSD to the basket for hard drives of the system unit.
And in some cases, SSDs are sold with a special adapter bracket, such as Kingston hyperx 3K 120 GB, and HyperX 3K costs a little more, for example, the same SSDNow V300.
On many new computer cases, manufacturers have recently specifically provided a place to mount a 2.5 SSD solid state drive. That is, no adapter is needed - a bracket from 2.5 to 3.5-inch form factor, for example, in one of the new zalman buildings there is such a cozy place for a solid-state drive on the back of the case.
So, after buying an SSD drive, we get such a nice box.
On the box we see information about the read and write speed characteristics of our SSD and the highest speed SATA III interface (up to 6 Gb / s). A worthy manufacturer of the SandForce SSD controller is also indicated.
We open the box, inside there is another box of foamed polyethylene, it contains the drive itself
We take out the SSD from the box. SSD Kingston HyperX 3K has metal case with dark plastic inserts. On the solid state drive, the HyperX lettering indicates that it belongs to the flagship line.
And on the back side there is a bracket for installing an SSD into a 3.5-inch form factor of a cage for hard drives of a system unit.
There are two sets of screws, the first for attaching the SSD to the 2.5 by 3.5 bracket, the second set of screws for fixing the bracket itself together with the SSD in the hard drive cage of the system unit. The screws are different in size, do not mix anything up.
So friends, you and I have almost everything to install our solid-state drive into the system unit, there is only no SATA III interface cable (up to 6 Gb / s), but I did not have to purchase it separately, since it was in a box from I bought it a year ago.
So, with four screws we attach our SSD to the 2.5 by 3.5 bracket
On a powered off computer we insert our bracket or a simple slide with our solid-state drive SSD into the hard drive cage of our system unit and fasten with four screws, two screws on each side. Please note that the basket already contains a simple SATA hard drive with an operating system, which I will later transfer to an SSD.
We remove one more side cover of the system unit and fix the bracket from the SSD on the other side.
Connect a high speed SATA III solid state drive (up to 6Gb / s) to motherboard right, to the SATA III connector (up to 6 Gb / s), otherwise it will not reveal all its capabilities (read our article)
And of course, the BIOS must be enabled for hard drives in AHCI.
Well, we installed our SSD. If the SSD is new, then.
Friends, you can reinstall the operating system on the SSD, or you can. In other words, whatever you want, all the information you are interested in is on the site.
On the Internet, you can find the opinion that you always need to install Windows on a solid-state drive, but you cannot transfer a ready-made and stably working operating system from a regular HDD to an SSD, since when Windows is installed on the HDD, accordingly, all its services are started for the HDD to work. ... But if you transfer such a system to an SSD, then many services will not only not help you work faster, but in addition will contribute to the rapid wear of a new SSD (for example, defragmentation).
I think this is not entirely correct, because the notorious defragmentation can be turned off, and you can spend several days on clean install I don't want a system with a hundred programs. And why then do SSD manufacturers themselves release utilities for transfer operating system from HDD to SSD, are they illiterate?
I personally, many times transferred the finished Windows to SSD, for example, on my work computer I transferred Windows 8 (I have it a traveler) from HDD to SSD (60 GB) two years ago, then I transferred the same Windows to another drive SSD (120GB) everything works so fast for me that it is faster and not necessary.
In the future, when, of course, we will install the new operating system on the solid-state drive again.
In this article I will try to explain to you what is an SSD drive, what is its difference from a conventional hard drive, I will tell you about its advantages and disadvantages, and you will also find out by what parameters (criteria) you should choose an SSD when purchasing.
This article on SSDs today was not born by accident. It turned out that many readers do not know at all what it is.
So, after my description of the SSD life program, the vast majority of users rushed to check their ordinary hard drives with this utility, which caused confusion in the comments. There I promised to write in more detail about SSD disks - I'm doing it.
In a dry language, the definition of an SSD is: solid state drive (SSD , solid-state drive) is a computer non-mechanical storage device based on memory chips.
You are unlikely to be imbued with this stingy definition. Now I will try to explain what an SSD is with "wet tongue", as they say - on the fingers.
I will come from far away ... First you need to remember (or learn for the first time) what an ordinary computer hard disk is (it is also called a hard drive).
A hard disk drive (HDD) is a device in your computer that stores all data (programs, movies, pictures, music ... the operating room itself) windows system) and it looks like this ...
Information on hDD written (and read) by magnetizing cells on magnetic plates that rotate at a wild speed. Above the plates (and between them), a special carriage with a reading head is worn like a frightened one.
The whole thing buzzes and moves constantly. In addition, this is a very "thin" device and is afraid of even simple wobbling during its operation, not to mention falling to the floor, for example (the readheads will encounter rotating discs and hello to the stored information on the disc).
And now the solid-state drive (SSD) is entering the scene. This is the same device for storing information, but based not on rotating magnetic disks, but on memory chips, as mentioned above. Such a big flash drive.
Nothing spinning, moving or buzzing! Plus - just crazy speed of data writing / reading!
On the left is the hard drive, on the right is the SSD.
Benefits of SSD drives
It's time to talk about the advantages and disadvantages of SSD-drives ...
1. Speed \u200b\u200bof work
This is the biggest plus of these devices! Changing your old hard drive to a flash drive, you won't recognize your computer!
Before the advent of SSDs, the slowest device in a computer was the hard drive. It, with its ancient technology from the last century, incredibly slowed down the enthusiasm of a fast processor and fast RAM.
2. Noise level \u003d 0 dB
Logically, there are no moving parts. In addition, these disks do not get warm during operation, so cooling coolers turn on less often and work less intensively (making noise).
3. Shock and vibration resistance
I watched the video on the network - the connected and working SSD-disk was shaken, dropped on the floor, knocked on it ..., and it continued to work quietly! No comment.
4. Light weight
Not a huge plus, of course, but still - hard drives are heavier than their modern competitors.
5. Low power consumption
I can do without numbers - the battery life of my old laptop has increased by more than one hour.
Disadvantages of SSD drives
1. High cost
This is at the same time the most limiting drawback for users, but also very temporary - prices for such drives are constantly and rapidly falling.
2. Limited number of rewriting cycles
A typical, medium-sized flash-based SSD with MLC technology is capable of approximately 10,000 read / write cycles. But the more expensive type of SLC memory can already live 10 times longer (100,000 rewriting cycles).
As for me, in both cases the flash drive can easily work for at least 3 years! It's just average life cycle home computer, after which there is a configuration update, replacement of components with more modern, fast and cheaper ones.
Progress does not stand still, and tadpoles from manufacturing companies have already come up with new technologies that significantly increase the lifespan of SSD drives. For example, RAM SSD or FRAM technology, where the resource, although limited, is practically unattainable in real life (up to 40 years in continuous read / write mode).
3. The impossibility of recovering deleted information
Deleted information from an SSD cannot be recovered by any special utility ... There are simply no such programs.
If at great leap voltage in an ordinary hard disk only the controller burns out in 80% of cases, then in SSD disks this controller is located on the board itself, together with memory chips, and the entire drive burns out - hello to family photo album.
This danger is almost nil in laptops and with an uninterruptible power supply.
Bus bandwidth
Remember, I advised you how to choose a USB flash drive? So when choosing a flash drive, the speed of reading / writing data is also of paramount importance. The higher this speed, the better. But you should also remember about the bus bandwidth of your computer, or rather, the motherboard.
If your laptop or stationary computer is very old, it makes sense to buy an expensive and fast SSD drive no. He simply will not be able to work even at half his capacity.
To make it clearer, I will voice the bandwidth of various buses (data transfer interface):
IDE (PATA) - 1000 Mbit / s. This is a very ancient interface for connecting devices to a motherboard. To connect an SSD to such a bus, you need a special adapter. The point of using the described disks in this case is absolute zero.
SATA - 1,500 Mbit / s. More fun, but not too much.
SATA2 - 3,000 Mbit / s. The most widespread bus at the moment. With such a bus, for example, my drive works at half its capacity. He needs ...
SATA3 - 6,000 Mbit / s. This is a completely different matter! This is where the SSD will show itself in all its glory.
So before buying, find out what kind of bus you have on the motherboard, as well as what the drive itself supports, and make a decision on the expediency of buying.
Here, for example, how I chose (and what was guided by) my HyperX 3K 120 GB. The read speed is 555 MB / s and the data write speed is 510 MB / s. This drive works in my laptop now at exactly half of its capabilities (SATA2), but exactly twice as fast as a standard hard drive.
Over time, it will move to the children's gaming computer, where there is SATA3, and it will demonstrate there all its power and all the speed of work without constraining factors (outdated, slow data transfer interfaces).
We conclude: if you have a SATA2 bus in your computer and you do not plan to use the disk in another (more powerful and modern) computer, buy a disk with throughput not higher than 300 MB / s, which will be significantly cheaper and at the same time twice as fast as your current hard disk.
Form factor
Also pay attention when choosing and buying a flash drive by form factor (size and dimensions). It can be 3.5 ″ (inches) - larger and slightly cheaper, but will not fit in a laptop, or 2.5 ″ - smaller and fits into any laptop (for stationary computers usually equipped with special adapters).
Thus, it is more practical to buy a disk in the 2.5 ″ form factor - and you can install it anywhere and sell (if anything) easier. And it takes up less space in the system unit, which improves the cooling of the entire computer.
IOPS indicator
An important factor is IOPS (the number of input / output operations per second), the higher this figure, the faster the drive will work with a large amount of files.
Memory chip
Memory chips are divided into two main types, MLC and SLC. The cost of SLC chips is much higher and the service life is on average 10 times longer than that of MLC memory chips, but with proper operation, the service life of drives on MLC memory chips is at least 3 years.
Controller
This is the most important part of SSD drives. The controller manages the operation of the entire drive, distributes data, monitors the wear of memory cells, and evenly distributes the load. I recommend giving preference to the time-tested and well-proven controllers SandForce, Intel, Indilinx, Marvell.
SSD memory capacity
It will be most practical to use an SSD only for the placement of the operating system, and all data (movies, music, etc.) is best stored on a second, hard drive. With this option, it is enough to buy a ~ 60 GB disk. Thus, you can save a lot and get the same acceleration of the computer (in addition, the service life of the drive will increase).
Again, I will give an example of my solution - special containers for hard drives are sold on the network (very inexpensively), which are inserted into a laptop in 2 minutes instead of an optical CD drive (which I have used a couple of times in four years). Here is a great solution for you - an old disk in place of a floppy drive, and a brand new SSD in place of a regular hard disk. It couldn't have been better.
And finally, a couple of interesting facts:
Why is a hard drive often called a hard drive? Back in the early 1960s, IBM released one of the first hard drives and the number of this development was 30 - 30, which coincided with the designation of the popular rifled weapon Winchester (Winchester), so this slang name stuck to all hard drives.
Why exactly hard disk? The main elements of these devices are several circular aluminum or non-crystalline glassy plates. Unlike floppy disks (floppy disks), they cannot be bent, that's why they called it - a hard disk.
That's all for today - if you've mastered this article and read it to the end, now you know for sure what is an SSD drive.
Until new interesting and useful programs!
USEFUL VIDEO
I only review programs! Any claims - to their manufacturers!
If your computer has an SSD, you should use a modern operating system. In particular, you don't need to use Windows XP or Windows Vista... Both of these operating systems do not support the TRIM command. Thus, when you delete a file on the old operating system, it cannot send this command the solid-state disk and, thus, the data remains on it (further depends on the controller, but in general, this is not very good).
Don't fill the SSD completely
It is necessary to leave free space on the solid-state disk, otherwise, the write speed on it may drop significantly. It may seem strange, but in fact, the explanation is quite simple. When there is enough free space on the SSD, the solid state drive uses the free blocks to write new information. Ideally, download official utility from the SSD manufacturer and see how much space it offers to reserve, usually such a function is present in these programs (it can be called Over Provisioning). On some disks this reserved space is present by default and can be seen in management windows disks as an unallocated area.
When SSD is small free space, it contains many partially filled blocks. In this case, when writing, it first reads a certain partially filled block of memory into the cache, changes it, and overwrites the block back to disk. This happens with every block of solid state drive information that needs to be used to write a particular file.
In other words, writing to an empty block is very fast, writing to a partially filled one forces you to perform many auxiliary operations, and therefore is slow. Previous tests have shown that you should use about 75% of the SSD's capacity for the perfect balance between performance and storage capacity. For modern SSDs with large capacities, this may be overkill.
Limit writing to SSD. Or not worth it.
Perhaps the most controversial point, and today, in 2019, I cannot be as categorical as when I originally prepared this material more than 5 years ago. In fact, an SSD is purchased to increase the speed of operation and a wide variety of operations, and therefore moving temporary files, the paging file, disabling indexing services and the like, although they will really reduce the wear and tear of the SSD, but, at the same time, will reduce the benefits from it.
Given the fact that today's solid state drives are generally relatively tenacious, I probably would not forcefully disable system files and functions, transfer service files from SSD to HDD. Except for one situation: if you have the cheapest 60-128 GB disk from an unknown Chinese manufacturer with a very low TBW recording resource (there are more and more of these recently, despite the general increase in the service life for popular brands).
Don't store large files that don't need fast access on an SSD
This is a fairly obvious point: your collection of films, photos and other media and archives usually does not require high access speed. Solid state drives SSDs are smaller and more expensive per gigabyte than conventional SSDs hard disks... On an SSD, especially if you have a second hard disk, you should store files of the operating system, programs, games - for which it is important fast access and which are constantly used.
Regular document files (by documents, I mean video and music and any other media) will play at the same speed from both HDD and SSD, and therefore there is no particular point in storing them on a solid-state drive, provided that this is not the only disk on a computer or laptop.
Hopefully this information will help you increase the lifespan of your SSD and enjoy the speed of its performance. Anything to add? - I will be glad to your comment.
Greetings! A long time ago I had a desire to make a small upgrade of my old laptop and breathe new life into it. For now, the best thing to do for my junk is to add RAM and replace the old HDD with a new SSD. Since I already have the maximum possible four gigabytes of RAM, the hard drive had to be replaced. Modern SSD drives are expensive and there is never too much space. It was decided to install the old disc in place of the DVD drive. Installation, tests, conclusions - please, under cat ...
The purchased SSD Samsung 750 EVO 250 GB was logically installed in place of the regular HDD disk... My native disk was 320 GB, which is not much more. There are many options for using an old hard drive. Sell \u200b\u200band reclaim some of the money for buying an SSD, buy a box with USB interface and use it as a portable disk or just some kind of adapter or install it in place of a DVD drive that I have not used for a long time. Having defeated the "toad", it was decided not to sell the disc. Since I already have a portable HDD, the choice fell on the so-called Caddy or Optibay device.
Specifications
- Device thickness standard: 12.7mm
- Interface: SATA
- Disk size and interface: SATA (2.5 ")
- Dimensions: 12.6 * 12.7 * 1.27cm
- Caddy - 1pc.
- Screwdriver - 1 pc.
- Bolts - 8 pcs.
- Seal - 1 pc.
The device itself is extremely simple. The form completely repeats a standard DVD drive. The only thing to consider is the thickness of the drive. Notebook DVD drives come in two sizes, 9.5mm and 12.7mm. So I highly recommend getting your DVD out and measuring its thickness before purchasing a "pocket". But if you don't want to disassemble the laptop once again, you can use the network and thus determine its size. Also be sure to check which interface your DVD uses. The screwdriver is very cheap and not very convenient, but if there is no tool at hand and you want to install the disk right now, then it will cope with its task.
The bolts were very useful. They help keep the disc in place, but not in the traditional style. I will describe the installation a little later. A rubber, perforated block, most likely, serves to more securely fix the disc in the pocket and to reduce vibration.
Disassembly
I decided to disassemble the adapter case a little and see what else is interesting there. I did not find any surprises. The tin case is reinforced with a plastic insert. The adapter board is extremely tiny, on which the SATA and mSata interfaces are located. I also discovered a strange kind of switch that has three positions. What function it performs is a mystery to me. I would be glad to see the version of its purpose in the comments.
Installation in a laptop
The first step is to get your laptop drive. Each laptop does this differently, but the principle is the same. In my case, it was required to unscrew the cover of the compartment, under which was the drive mounting bolt. I unscrewed it and pressed on a small pedal, the DVD pushed a little out of its saddle. Now you can freely get it. 
After we have compared the dimensions and checked that the adapter fits freely into the place of the DVD drive, you can install the disc in the Caddy. To securely fix the disk, you need to screw four bolts into it until it stops, put the disk in the "pocket" and push it into the SATA interface. The bolts will rest against special projections on the adapter body. Thus, the disc is rigidly fixed, but for greater reliability it is required to install a rubber seal from the rear end of the disc. 
In this form, you can already connect the adapter to the laptop and turn it on. But it will not be fixed, which is not safe. The adapter is attached to the laptop case using a special mount, which you need to twist from your standard DVD drive and fix it on the new adapter. Such mounts have different shapes, but at the same time they have standard layout mounting holes on the drive housing and our Caddy. 
The final touch - you need to bring beauty. From the disk drive, I remove the decorative cover with a button, which is held on several latches, and install it on the Caddy. Everything is also standard here. All latch holes are in place. It remains only to install the adapter in its rightful place, fix it with a bolt to the laptop case and close the compartment. You can turn it on and enjoy :). 
Testing
I did some simple tests and it turned out that I have the same revisions of the SATA interface on my laptop, both at the main place of the laptop installation and at the place where the DVD drive is connected. Since my laptop is not the first freshness, the maximum I could count on was SATA 3 Gb / s. And so it happened. In my case, it didn't matter on which of the interfaces I hooked up the SSD disk, and on which HDD. The expected speed of the ball is the same for both SSD and HDD.
conclusions
There are a myriad of similar adapters available at very different prices. I can't say exactly what the difference is between them. In my case, this is one of the cheapest representatives. Data transfer rate on SSD disk does not differ from the speed of work in a regular place. Possibly working with sATA interface 3 there will be some difference, but I cannot verify it. I have no complaints about the build quality. Everything came up like a native. I hope it will serve for a long time and please me.
I hope I helped you decide on the advisability of buying a product and, in particular, this adapter. If I missed something, I will try to answer everything questions asked in comments.
A small video review for greater clarity
That's all. Thank you all for your attention to my review! Happy shopping and good luck!
You can buy PLN adapters at
