We all know that SSDs are better than HDDs, most notably because of their speed. However, there are a bunch of ways that SSDs are better than HDDs and make them completely obsolete, and some of those ways are ones that you may never have even thought of. We'll break down some of them, just in case you're still on the fence about getting a new SSD in place of an HDD.

5 Lower power consumption and heat

Good for longevity

Being a solid-state piece of hardware without any moving parts has its advantages, as SSDs use significantly less power than an HDD. There are no moving parts to power, which in turn means there's less heat.

Heat is generally bad for components like these, which is why you'll see a lot of concern surrounding newer PCIe versions and the power that they consume. SSDs are used to running cooler, but some of these are pushing the limits of them to new heights, which sees their speed drop when they do heat up like that.

By and large, though, regular SSDs running at regular temperatures will be significantly better than an HDD.

4 Silent operation

Keep things quiet

HDDs make noise, and in some cases, quite a bit of noise. They have spinning noises and clicks, while SSDs run completely silently. There are no physical moving parts that can make noise.

Some HDDs are quieter than others, but they all make noise in some way. SSDs don't make any noise, so if you want to build a quiet PC, then an SSD over an HDD is a must.

3 More physical resistance to damage

Don't drop either of them, though

The moving parts in HDDs don't just cause an increased power usage or noise, but they're also an actual point of failure. If you drop an HDD you run the risk of damaging the platter or the head, but there's no such analogous component in an SSD.

Of course, that's not to say you should go out and run your own impromptu drop tests with your drives, but an SSD will almost certainly survive more drops than an HDD will. HDDs are incredibly fragile.

2 Instantly access your data

No delay or wait

While this is tangentially related to speed, you can access your data significantly quicker on an SSD than you can on an HDD. That's thanks to the fact that an SSD is instantly accessible, whereas an HDD will need to spin up when being accessed and move the read/write head.

This latency is very noticeable, especially if your HDD isn't your main drive. It can go to sleep when not being used for a little bit, meaning that the next time you access it you'll be left waiting for it to start up before you can access your data. That time spent waiting can be frustrating, especailly if you want to just find a file in a pinch.

1 Price parity for most consumer needs

Price per gigabyte is on par, these days

When it comes to price per gigabyte, SSDs nowadays are on par with HDDs and the prices that they come in at. Maybe you'll pay a little bit more for an SSD, but not much more, and the benefits far outweight that minor increase in cost. You get all of the benefits listed here, alongside the significantly faster speeds of an SSD, too.

For any regular consumer need, a run of the mill SSD will be more than enough. Even a SATA SSD will get the job done, though we recommend something like an M2 SSD, as the chances are that you also have a spare slot on your motherboard for one.