Instead of writing to a location on a physical disc, an SSD writes the data to a block. Whereas a solid-state drive is a form of flash memory, like a USB thumb drive-but with a much larger capacity. The operating system indexes the file locations in a file system and accesses the data using a mechanical arm. Wear leveling is one of the major differences between a regular magnetic hard drive and a solid-state drive.Ī traditional hard drive stores files in physical locations on a magnetic platter. The first protection comes in the form of wear leveling, designed to evenly distribute stored data between SSD blocks to ensure even wear.
HDD: Which Storage Device Should You Choose? What Is SSD Wear Levelling? SSDs are designed with self-sufficiency in mind, using a series of algorithms and fail-safes that the manufacturer puts in place to maximize drive life and ensure data is discarded correctly. Generally speaking, you should never have to perform any maintenance on your solid-state drive. So, how do you securely erase an SSD without damaging the drive? Using a regular tool can damage the SSD, reducing its lifespan. Like other types of flash memory, you can only write to an SSD so many times, which presents an issue if you want to wipe the solid-state drive clean. An SSD was once a trade-off between disk space, cost, and the speed boost, but large capacity SSDs are now cheaper than ever.
A solid-state drive (SSD) is one of the best upgrades you can make to your PC.
