It’s pretty safe to say the cat’s out of the bag about solid state hard drives. I now get asked at least twice per day about the differences between them, mechanical hard drives and compatibility. Nope, I’m terrible with secrets so I’m going to spill the beans about all the solid state hullabaloo.

For those not in the know, solid state drives (SSD) have no moving parts like hard drives. Because there’s nothing whirling and clicking inside, the speed of the drive is limited only to the electronic gizmos within. So not to overwhelm you with technical terms, solid state drives are just plain fast in comparison to older technologies.

Unlike their predecessors, SSD’s seem to be manufactured by everyone. Companies I’ve never heard of have started manufacturing them simply because they’re cheap to manufacture. Rather than hair sized gaps between all the buzzing internal guts, SSD’s are simply soldered circuits.

But, not all SSD’s are created equal. Some brands are simply unreliable and some technologies are garbage. Bottom of the barrel drives use TLC (Triple Level Cell) technology which is cheap and unable to handle high usage. MLC (Multi Level Cell) is typically two layers and is found in higher quality consumer products. Most of us won’t find SLC (Single Level Cell) feasible simply based on price.

Solid state technology is designed for a number of different physical interfaces which translates to most computers and laptops being able to be retrofitted with a SSD. Some desktop computers using large desktop hard drives will need a relatively inexpensive mounting bracket. Older computers will be limited only by the speed of the interface, or plug, used by the manufacturer.

As a company we’ve installed many hundreds of SSD drives with 100% success until they die. It was failure four or five that provoked me to find out why they were failing prematurely. I learned that large files and lots of data on cheaper technology caused certain untimely death. I also discovered that spending more for a better product was certainly worth not having customers complain about data loss.

Modern operating systems from Apple and Microsoft are designed to run on SSD drives. Microsoft’s Windows automatically detects it’s being installed on a SSD and configures itself appropriately. Apple OSX loads in about a third of the time and operates significantly faster in comparison to older technology.

Aside from speed, laptops benefit from longer battery life because there are no motors spinning about. Motors and magnets consume huge amounts of power compared to solid state. In my own laptop I’ve noticed about a 20% increase in battery performance when unplugged. When plugged my battery charges much faster.

SSD’s aren’t all guts and glory. When they die they die and data loss is a definite. SSD’s need to be backed up more frequently than old mechanical drives because there is very little warning leading up to them conking out. Luckily both Microsoft and Apple have included built-in (and free) backup and recovery utilities for making hard drive images fairly painless.

Ah, another newfangled technology to wrap our heads around. Solid state technology is beneficial even with the threat of ill-fated failure looming over our heads. Prices are dropping relatively quickly as they become more popular which means they’re in easy reach of most users. Because storage is always the bottleneck of all computers, swapping out your old drive for an SSD is one way of adding new life to an old system.

(Jeromy Patriquin is the President of Laptop & Computer Repair, Inc. located at 509 Main St. in Gardner.  You can read past articles at www.LocalComputerWiz.com.)