SSD drive laptop

[zakelectric]

Hi guys,

Just curious if there's anything that makes a laptop with an SSD drive "special"? Like is there hardware in the laptop that is more conducive to the SSD drive or is it all the same?

The reason I ask is that SSD drive laptops are hundreds of dollars more expensive than one with a mechanical drive. I love the speed of the SSD drive and it seems that if it's all the same I could buy a traditional laptop, rip out the mechanical drive, and throw in my own SSD for much cheaper than buying a laptop with SSD pre-installed.

What are your thoughts?

[fruitoftheloom]

Hi guys,

Just curious if there's anything that makes a laptop with an SSD drive "special"? Like is there hardware in the laptop that is more conducive to the SSD drive or is it all the same?

The reason I ask is that SSD drive laptops are hundreds of dollars more expensive than one with a mechanical drive. I love the speed of the SSD drive and it seems that if it's all the same I could buy a traditional laptop, rip out the mechanical drive, and throw in my own SSD for much cheaper than buying a laptop with SSD pre-installed.

What are your thoughts?

Nothing special, providing the SSD has the same connectors and are the same size, they are interchangable.

[kusti8]

I think you are mixing up SSD and HDD.

SSD stand for solid state drive. They are more reliable, quite, last longer, but don't use the same methods to store data. They have no moving parts. They use flash memory to store data.

HDD do have moving parts and they are made up of magnetic disks where data is stored magnetically. Data can be erased easier (wave a magnet around it) and they aren't as reliable or fast, but they are much cheaper.

[blc]

Laptops sold with SSDs are usually more expensive because SSDs are seen as a "premium" feature. The reality is that SSDs are getting cheaper all the time, and companies like Apple who charge a huge amount extra for an SSD, or a larger SSD, are generally ripping you off. You can get a good quality high-speed 240GB SSD for £63; even a good quality 480GB SSD will only cost £110.

The only thing stopping you getting a new laptop and replacing the drive is the warranty. You do have to be careful with connector types however: some laptops use MiniPCIe or m.2 SSDs, which can push the price up compared to a drive with a regular SATA connector. Personally if I was in the market for a laptop I wouldn't buy new; I'd buy a second-hand ThinkPad, probably an x220 series, replace the mechanical drive with an SSD and get the RAM up to 8GB.

I think you are mixing up SSD and HDD.

SSD stand for solid state drive. They are more reliable, quite, last longer, but don't use the same methods to store data. They have no moving parts. They use flash memory to store data.

HDD do have moving parts and they are made up of magnetic disks where data is stored magnetically. Data can be erased easier (wave a magnet around it) and they aren't as reliable or fast, but they are much cheaper.

Hard disk drives were originally called "hard" because the storage platters are solid, unlike "floppy" disks. With that etymology in mind you can't strictly call an SSD a HDD because it doesn't have platters. But personally I think that's quite a pedantic distinction: they're both storage drives, just that one is flash-based and the other is mechanical. I didn't get the impression that the OP was conflating SSDs and mechanical drives.

[klricks]

My ASUS laptop came with a Hybrid drive. SSD and mechanical in the same drive. There is also special caching software built in which automatically stores the most frequently accessed files (OS files) in the SSD.