Apple is always on the cutting edge and part of this is their solid state hard drives. In this article I will explain briefly how solid state drives work and how Apple is making giant leaps on introducing them into their entire computer line. I will also cover how installing a Solid State Drive (SSD) can breath new life into your aging Apple computers. Additionally I will cover a little on how Fusion and hybrid drives work. While they are not exactly the same processes they have many of the same attributes.

The Evolution of the Solid State Drive

Believe it or not solid state drives have been around nearly as long as computers. However, we did not call them that, we called it memory. For the sake of the article, I will go more deeply into memory at a later time, but the technology is much in the same. The biggest problem however is that memory is not as flexible as a hard drive. Simply put, it does not have the capability of keeping track of all the information like hard drives. Since memory never held anything for long it constantly changes at thousands of times faster than a hard drive would allow.

If I lost you so far, do not worry. The main point is saying that memory could not work as a hard drive because it cannot store anything when your computer shuts off. Let us continue on to solid state drives (SSD). SSDs are basically memory with a circuit board that organizes what goes where. Since memory does not have any moving parts, neither does solid state drives. Also since the memory goes so much faster, you also get some of that speed. Believe it or not, the slowest part of modern computers is having a traditional hard drive in it. Modern SSDs can easily reach 5 to 6 times the speed of a regular drive. This makes them perfect for mobile applications like laptops or even desktops to put applications on them. Apple has just recently came out with even faster interface for them that gets a staggering 1250mbs. (Thats a DVD quality movie every second.)

So Why Isn't Everything Solid State?

SSDs have for a long time been extraordinarily cost prohibitive and a much smaller size. I remember buying my first SSD that was 128GBs of storage and it cost me over $250 just two years ago. Today I can buy a 256gb drive for the same price! However the size of these drives are just not big enough for some consumers. Luckily Apple offers up to 512gb sizes where we can get a little more storage with all the benefits, but it still only a quarter of what a traditional drive can do. The traditionals drives still hold the crown when it comes to maximum storage potential.

Fusion Drive and Hybrid Technologies

While Apple just released its Fusion drive technology, some hard drives have been using a form of this technology for a few years. Answering the call of speed Seagate, a hard drive manufacturer, put a smaller SSDs in conjunction with a traditional drive. This avoided the large price of SSDs but gave consumers the speed of SSDs, even if it was only a small part of it. It works by using a math algorithm to detect what files you use the most and allocating them on the SSD until full. The benefits of this is that it only takes one drive bay so laptops easily can fit in a hybrid drive.

Enter Apple and the advent of Fusion Drive technology. Fusion drive works a lot like the hybrid technology with a few notable exceptions. The first is that it literally uses two drives. This allows large capacity SSDs and the larger capacity hard disk drives(HDDs). Another differences is that it puts all applications directly on the SSD. Applications in general take a larger amount of room and things like your operating system load times depend on a fast moving storage drive. With this technology you can easily store all your files and movies without having to worry about taking up valuable space on a SSD drive.

Time is Money

So to get on to the point of the article, how does spending more money on an upgrade save people money in the long run. You may have already figured this out! On a laptop, a SSD not only keeps your computer at top performance minimizing the amount of time waiting for applications, but it has a much lower chance of failing. Even if you drop the device they have a high chance of being completely fine. For this reason alone, every iPod, iPhone, and iPad (except the iPod Classic) has a form of SSD. They are made for portability and speed, and it shows with all these great devices.

Another benefit for laptops is that SSDs also take less power saving your battery. While this may not be a huge benefit initially the power over time of your computer can save you a ton of time recharging. So for laptops, you get the speed, power, and durability of these fantastic drives and in many cases your old computer can be upgraded into a SSD to gain huge performance on an older device.

On iMacs and Mac Minis the benefits are all to do with speed. Everything that a computer does is affected by the computers hard drive and maximizing the speed of your devices gives an added edge to the speed. The great thing on Mac Minis is that they can be upgraded to any SSD that you would like or even add a second SSD. For iMacs it gets a bit more complicated and I recommend calling CityMac to have their technicians let you know what your options are. Remember also that you must by the new Fusion drive with your computer since it can not be upgraded to later.

Final Thoughts

For me upgrading is almost a sickness. I just have to do it. Getting the maximum speed out of my machines is a constant goal of mine. Solid State Drives are absolutely amazing. I have replaced every computer in my house with a SSD and I don’t regret a second of it. I can get start times reduced from almost a minute down to seconds! Transfer speeds between files are now something that I can actually wait for rather than turn on the TV and waiting an hour. I highly recommend getting a SSD or upgrading to one. Luckily CityMac is one of the few places that can easily upgrade your Apple computer to this technology and their technicians have a ton of experience installing and recommending hard drives. If you feel a need for speed it will completely change your life!