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by Samuel Buchmann
External SSD or external HDD?
12.8.2019
Translation: machine translated
Despite the cloud and NAS, an external drive is sometimes indispensable these days. You can use it to store your data on the go or share it with others. But what's best to store your data on? An external SSD or HDD?
Simply connect an external drive to your computer or notebook and you've expanded your storage space. No screwing around or going to an IT specialist. But that's not all: if you need to take your data with you, simply unplug the external drive and plug it in again elsewhere.
SSDs and HDDs are suitable as external storage technology. Although the drives look similar on the outside, they are based on completely different technologies. Both have advantages and disadvantages.
What distinguishes the SSD from the HDD
SSD stands for Solid State Drive. An SSD stores data electronically in non-volatile memory. This means that data is not lost when the power is switched off. If you want to know more about SSDs and how they work, I recommend the following article.
In contrast to an SSD, an HDD works mechanically. A write head writes the data magnetically to rotating discs. I can also recommend an article on HDDs.
The clear advantage of the SSD over the HDD is the speed. The HDD is limited by the rotation speed of the discs. As the SSD does not store data mechanically, it is much faster.
A small speed comparison
To give you an idea of how much faster an SSD is, I have compared two external hard drives with an external SSD in benchmarks.
The three external drives all support USB 3.0. According to the manufacturer, the Fast SSD has a maximum transfer rate of 540 MB/s, the Backup Plus Ultra Touch and the Mobile Drive 120 MB/s.
In PC Mark 8, which simulates the work steps of various applications from the Adobe Creative Suite, Microsoft Office and games, the external SSD is up to 2.5 times faster than the two HDDs. The Fast SSD from Seagate achieves a score of 4924 points. The Lacie Mobile Drive scores 2026 points and the Backup Plus Ultra Touch achieves 2126 points.
HDD or SSD, which should it be?
HDDs are available with more capacity and are cheaper than SSDs. SSDs, on the other hand, are faster, more robust - as they have no mechanical parts - and physically smaller. If you need a lot of storage space, don't want to spend a lot of money and mainly use the external drive as a stationary drive anyway, you should opt for an external HDD.
Kevin Hofer
Senior Editor
kevin.hofer@digitecgalaxus.chGuide
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