I changed my Macbook Pro Hard Drive to Solid State Drive many years ago. WOW!!! That was a massive difference in my time on the computer.
Rugged and solid state drives differ in the technology used to store and retrieve data. HDDs are cheaper, and you can get more storage space. SSDs are faster, lighter, more durable, and use less energy.
When I changed my computer to SSD, the start-up time and performance time the computer took to complete a task were super fast compared to the standard HDD.
Since I was storing and not needing performance when it came to photos, I just continued to use HDDs for my external hard drives.
Back in June, I wrote this blog post Camera Insurance? I wasn’t Covered!!!
I said, “While in Trinidad teaching in the Storytellers Abroad workshop, I got up from my chair, and my foot caught the power cord plugged into HyperDrive – USB Type-C Hub, which also my 4TB Western Digital Hard drive was plugged into. The hard drive went crashing to the floor.”
This was when I switched to SSD external hard drives.
My first external SSD was the Samsung 500GB SSD. The main reason the traditional 4TB HDD failed was the moving parts. When the hard drive crashed to the floor, the platters got scratched. Had I been using the SSD, that wouldn’t have happened. There are no moving parts.
I also am making backups more frequently than I did before. I lost a lot of images because I hadn’t been backing up those drives as often as I should have been.
I have bought many more SSD drives like this SanDisk 1TB. While these are about 3 to 4 times more expensive than the HDD drives for the same amount of space, I feel more secure that the chance of failure is greatly diminished.
I still recommend backing up your hard drives. The SSD can fail, just like the memory cards we use to capture the images in our cameras.
When writing this post their are sales going on that place these hard drive prices:
- 500 GB $80
- 1 TB $150
- 2 TB $300
While the larger drives cost more, they may be a better investment. Many believe it is better to have smaller enterprises than lose a lot if one were to go wrong.
Whatever theory you are using for drives now is probably good to do with SSD.
I hope this tip helps you and keeps your images around for a long time.