How to know before buying a ssd
Buying a Solid State Drive (SSD): Everything You Need to Know
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hi this is john barrack executive editor
repeating ENCOM today we're going to
talk about what you need to know when
you're ready to buy an SSD the form
factor the interface and the bus type
these are three things about an SSD that
are quite frequently confused and
sometimes also overlap so let's take a
look at the SSDs we have on the table in
front of us here to get an idea of what
each of these things meet the form
factor of the SSD or the shape is the
thing that's most important to know
before you start to purchase what we
have here is an example of all the
different form factors that you'll find
in the market today
this Intel obtained drive for example
comes in the PCI Express form factor and
this is meant for use in a desktop
you'll plug it into a slot on your
motherboard the most frequently found
kind of SSD from years back and even to
an extent today is the two and a half
inch drive this is the same form factor
as a laptop hard drive and you can use
these both in certain laptops that have
a bay for them and in a desktop PC that
has room for it and has the serial ATA
interface the other SSDs that we have on
the table here are what are known as m
dot 2 SSDs these are small SS deeds that
are used in both laptops and desktops
some laptops have compatibility with
them some desktops do not all do but to
take one out over here we have a Samsung
model that's 80 millimeters long and
it's what's known as an m2 2280 SSD so
we talked about form factors here but
those are not necessarily the same thing
as the interfaces on these drives and
the interface is what actually is used
to connect to the laptop or desktop you
install the SSD in so for example this
as we mentioned is a PCI Express
interface and to only fit in a desktop
this model uses what's known as the
serial ata interface and you can see on
the edge here there's a blade connector
it's actually a two-part connector one
part is for the power that is delivered
to the drive and the other half is for
the data that travels over it the m2
drives here on the other hand use a
single bladed connector on the end and
this goes into a slot on the motherboard
as I'll show you in a moment
so we spoken about interface and form
factor but when you're ready to purchase
SSD for your system you also have to
factor in something known as the bus
type the bus basically is the data
pathway from the SSD to the system you
need to know the kind that you have in
some cases in order to buy a compatible
SSD so for example any serial ata drive
you buy such as this one will use the
serial ata
so in this case the interface and the
bus are the same thing however with an
end to drive you may have one of two
buses the serial ata bus which is the
same as the bus that was used on this
two and a half inch drive port may use
the PCI Express bus which is what is
used on this PCI Express Drive and the
two drives go into a slot on the board
that can support depending on the slot
one or the other type of bus or in some
cases both types of us but you need to
know what your system supports and what
the drive supports before you can know
what is compatible in your system how do
you know what you can upgrade when the
time comes for instance if you have a
desktop PC that you're building or
upgrading the example being this
motherboard here it definitely supports
serial ata with these ports along the
end here you could have plug a cable
into that to put a serial ata Drive on
it but what about other Drive types you
may for instance have the ability to put
an end to drive on one of these
motherboards for instance if you look at
this board here we have 2 m2 slots
between the PCI Express slots over here
and as you can see you can install as
you can see it's not that simple in the
m2 slots there are holes along the
length of it that you could adjust
according to the length of the m2 Drive
that you're installing so this 80
millimeter drive will go on the 80 mark
here so give it a shot snap it in now if
I were installing this for real I would
have taken the screw out over here and
then screw to down onto that post but
the idea here is that you can install a
longer or shorter Drive just by
adjusting this screw the thing is most
into drives you'll find are 80
millimeters long and the boards will
already have that screw in that place
that's another example we have a shorter
22:42 Drive year which is 42 millimeters
long and if we wanted to install that on
this drive here we would move the screw
over here and snap this in like so now
one thing to bear in mind about these
drives is you do need to know as I
mentioned before the bus type of the
drive these are both what is known as a
PCI Express and vme Drive and what you
need to make sure is that the slots on
your motherboard support that PCI
Express nvme Drive in some cases the
slot family supports SATA drive in the
kids you need a SATA bus
and to drive now let's say for example
you're upgrading a laptop such as this a
Sue's gaming laptop we have here we've
taken the screws out already so you pop
it open now inside this system here you
have a couple of options but what you'll
notice over here is an m2 slot which is
already populated with it drive so you
may wish to for instance put a higher
capacity or a faster drive in a system
like this but again what you want to
know about your laptop is a what type of
drive does taken what form factor in
this case M to be what interface does it
use this case again m2 and see what kind
of bus does it use in this case either
PCI Express or SATA once you know those
three things you can buy a drive that
you can use as an upgrade in here
so you've figured out the bus type the
interface and the form factor of the SSD
that you want but how do you tell once
you narrow that down to a group of SSDs
the differences among them there's a
bunch of different things there there is
the type of memory that's used in the
SSD and there's also the capacity so for
instance if you look at this group of
SSDs we have a variety of memory types
included here there's what's known as
mlc and TLC memory ml c stands for
multi-level cell TLC stands for triple
level sell the idea with the different
memory types is that using different
amounts of bits per cell allows for
greater or lesser endurance ratings
typically mlc is considered to be a more
premium type of memory than TLC and you
will find TLC and most consumer and
budget drives these days one further bit
of marketing that you may find
surrounding your SSD purchases whether
the drive uses 3d nand's or 3d memory
cells essentially all this means is that
the manufacturer of the memory cells has
managed to layer cells one on top of the
other whereas before the typical
manufacture process was to make the
cells planar or flat across the cells
the idea there is with 3d you can pack
more cells in more efficiently at a
lower cost
another differentiator among drives is a
tvw or terabytes written rating this is
something that you can use to compare
like drives of the same capacity the
idea here is that the manufacturer knows
what the capabilities of the drive are
based on the type of memory cell
technology that it uses and gives it a
rating for how many terabytes you could
write to it before the drive starts to
wear out now in SSDs do wear out over
time if you write to them over
over and over again over the course of
many years the cells begin to wear out
into no longer store data then what the
drive will do is what's called
decommission themselves which means you
get less capacity as the cells go out of
commission so the idea here is that at a
given capacity if you have a higher
terabytes written rating that is
considered a more premium drive at a
given manufacturing line than a light
capacity drive with a lower terabytes
written raining now related to the
terabytes written rating is the warranty
length now a manufacturer is going to
look at a drive and say I know this can
last under typical usage for three years
for five years for ten years and rate
the drive accordingly no manufacturer
wants to lose money of course so another
way of looking at drives and comparing
them to each other is to look at the
warranty length if the warranty on one
is three years and another is 10 years
you can bet that the ten-year drive is
probably used with a higher quality of
memory and is expected to write greater
volumes for a longer period of time when
you're looking at two different drive
families and you've narrowed down the
memory type and many of the other
factors the cost per gigabyte is a very
effective way of looking at value one
relative to the other and the way you
calculate that is some simple math you
take the cost of the drive you divide it
by the capacity of the drive and you get
the cost per gigabyte so for example if
you have a 200 gig drive which costs you
$100 50 cents per gigabyte you could
take another drive which has a different
set of figures and compare the numbers
you get with that one and what you might
notice and looking at specifications on
a vendor site is that the higher you go
in capacity the better the rated
performance of the drive is and this is
actually a real thing the idea being
that if you have more cells on a drive
you could have more of them operate in
parallel and therefore and get faster
speeds this tends to come into play more
with nvme PCI Express drives they have a
higher potential high-end throughput
they would have SATA drive but it's
something that you may notice and it is
a real thing when you're shopping for an
SSD today one brand name that you'll run
into is Intel's update and there's a
little bit of a subtle distinction
between different types of opting drives
that's good to know about if you're
shopping for an SSD what we have here is
an obtain m2 SSD which can serve as a
boot drive and stands alone as a drive
now you'll notice that this is an m2
form factor and it looks identical to
the obtain drive that's inside this
system here now the system here
has an opt-in Drive and it serves a
different purpose it's what's known as
OP team memory and the name is a little
bit misleading op team memory it's not
system memory but what it is is it's a
cache for a hard drive or could also be
a cash for another SSD but in this case
for a hard drive
the idea there is that dynamically the
system puts the most frequently used
data on the OP team memory drive the
thing to bear in mind again is that
octane memory is a cache an obtain SSD
like the obtain SSD eight we have here
as a standalone SSD drive when you're
stopping don't mix them up so we've gone
through a lot of the things that you
need to factor in when you're buying an
SSD for a braid or for a PC build but
one thing to think about is do you need
to upgrade at all so if you have a
system that has a hard drive chances are
that any SSD you put in there whether
it's a SATA SSD or a PCI Express SSD
with as much higher throughput will feel
much faster than a hard drive it is well
worth upgrading to but one thing to bear
in mind if you haven't had experience
with SSDs is that some cheap systems
tablets and - and ones and inexpensive
laptops use a type of memory known as e
MMC that's basically a cheaper for flash
memory that's much slower than an SSD
and you shouldn't confuse it with a true
SSD so there you have it a 101 level
primer on how to buy an SSD and what you
need to know when shopping for more
reviews roundups and SSD buying
information visit PC Mag com
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