Let's say you want to purchase a new desktop, laptop or server. Should you buy one with a hybrid drive installed or a solid state drive (SSD) installed?
It depends on your needs:
- If you need the fastest system possible, choose SATA SSD because SATA SSDs are faster than SATA hybrids, which are faster than SATA mechanical drives, which are faster than old-fashioned IDE mechanical drives. But performance of hybrids is also workload specific. For example, if you frequently use the same applications then a hybrid may feel like it is performing as well as an SSD.
- If you need the best possible battery life for a mobile system, choose hybrids and compromise on speed a bit compared with SSDs.
- If you need a large amount of storage, choose hybrids because large SSDs are still pretty expensive
- If reliability is important to you, choose SSDs as they tend to fail less frequently than spindle-based drives do, especially in offices where people throw their laptops around a lot.
- And if you need speed, good battery life, lots of storage, and reliability, then...well, good luck and keep on dreaming as someday your dreams will be a reality (but not yet).
The above tip was previously published in an issue of WServerNews, a weekly newsletter from TechGenix that focuses on the administration, management and security of the Windows Server platform in particular and cloud solutions in general. Subscribe to WServerNews today by going to http://www.wservernews.com/subscribe.htm and join almost 100,000 other IT professionals around the world who read our newsletter!
Mitch Tulloch is an eleven-time recipient of the Microsoft Most Valuable Professional (MVP) award and a widely recognized expert on Windows Server and cloud computing technologies. Mitch is also Senior Editor of WServerNews. For more information about him see http://www.mtit.com