Introduction
This document offers some guidance for purchasing solid state hard drives.
Benefits and Limitations
Here are some of the characteristics of solid-state drives that provide benefits and limitations in different circumstances.
- COST — Solid state drives are expensive compared to traditional drives. A 4TB external USB solid state drive may cost $200 whereas a 4TB mechanical external USB drive may cost $100.
- LIMITATIONS — Solid state drives can fail over time with repeated write, erase, and write tasks. It is also believed that they can deteriorate over many years, so they may not be ideal for long-term storage.
- RELIABILITY — They are not susceptible to mechanical failures that were common for spinning hard drives.
- SPEED — Solid state drives help speed-up work that requires opening or saving large files, or large numbers of files.
Solid State Drive vs Mechanical Drive
If you are storing old files for archival purposes, and don’t mind waiting while files to copy to the archive drive, then using a mechanical drive can save money. If you need a fast drive for regular work, then a solid state drive may be a good choice. Consider the above list of benefits and drawbacks.
Drive Speed
The speed of a drive is not an issue for someone doing light computer work with a few small documents. For anyone working with larger files or large numbers of files, a faster drive will be a benefit.
A mechanical drive may have a data transfer rate of 120MB per second. A solid state drive may have a transfer rate of 800MB per second, or 1,000 to 2,000 per second, depending on the model.
Data Drive
It is common to use an external solid state drive as a data drive for the following reasons:
- If your computer crashes, your data files will not be impacted.
- The faster operation of the solid state drive is useful for opening and saving files.
- You can purchase a lower-cost laptop or desktop computer with smaller internal storage if your large collection of files are on an external drive.
- If you work on two or more computers, the drive is easily moved from one to the other.
Remember Backups
You may wish to purchase a cheaper mechanical drive for daily or weekly incremental backups of your primary solid state data drive. If the backup runs at night or outside or work hours, the speed won’t be an issue.
USB C and USB A Cables
Some drives come with two data cables: one for newer USB-C ports, and one for the older larger USB- A ports. Others come with a single cable and an adapter to accommodate both USB standards. While USB-C is newer and supposedly faster, you may find the USB-A connector works faster depending on the computer.
“Pro” Drives
Some drive models are more expensive and have a “Pro” designation. These may be waterproof, ruggedized, or faster than typical solid state drives. They may also have a longer expected lifespan.
External USB Solid State Drives
The following solid state drives are worth considering. Choose based on your storage capacity needs and speed needs. Drives are listed alphabetically by brand and model. Retail and sale pricing is provided below. Sometimes the retail pricing provided on websites is exaggerated or outdated. The sale prices are closer to typical market price. Be aware of that before making an impulse buy based on a possibly misleading representation of “savings.”
- Crucial – X6 SE 2TB External USB-C/USB-A Portable SSD, $110 retail, $80 sale price [Best Buy]
- Note: This drive has 800 Mbps read and 800 Mbps write speed.
- Crucial – X6 SE 4TB External USB-C/USB-A Portable SSD, $230 retail, $150 sale price [Best Buy]
- Note: This drive has 800 Mbps read and 540 Mbps write speed.
- Crucial – X9 Pro 2TB External USB-C SSD, $120 retail, $110 sale price [Best Buy]
- Crucial – X9 Pro 4TB External USB-C SSD, $250 retail, $220 sale price [Best Buy]
- Samsung – T7 2TB External USB 3.2 Gen 2 Portable SSD with Hardware Encryption, $180 retail, $100 sale price [Best Buy]
- Samsung – T7 Shield 2TB External USB 3.2 Gen 2 Rugged SSD IP65 Water Resistant, $160 retail, $120 sale price [Best Buy]
- SanDisk – Extreme Portable 2TB External USB-C NVMe SSD, $225 retail, $100 sale price [Best Buy]
- SanDisk – Extreme Portable 4TB External USB-C NVMe SSD, $400 retail, $200 sale price [Best Buy]
- SanDisk – Extreme Pro Portable 2TB External USB-C NVMe SSD, $295 retail, $140 sale price [Best Buy]
- SanDisk – Extreme Pro Portable 4TB External USB-C NVMe SSD, $478 retail, $240 on sale [Best Buy]
