How To Upgrade A Hard Drive To A Solid State Drive | Faster 7 Part 33

Solid state drives, or SSDs, possess the unique attribute of no moving mechanical parts.  The great advantage of this setup is the massive increase in read and write times compared to traditional hard drives.  The great disadvantage of this setup is the massive costs associated with performing the upgrade.

Users may be surprised to find that solid state hard drives are still extremely expensive, sometimes almost 5 times what the cost of a traditional hard drive of the same capacity will cost.  Knowing this, it is important to point out that this speed tip is probably only good for those of you who are hardcore performance tweakers and are looking to get the most out of your machines.

Many people ask whether or not upgrading to a solid state drive is worth it.  Well, the hard drive is probably one of the largest bottlenecks to computer systems after a good amount of memory, an exceptional processor and a solid graphics card have been installed.  There are really four components to look into upgrading and the hard drive is typically the last one to use.

It is unlikely solid state hard drives will remain as expensive as they have.  As with any technology, supply and production typically ends up driving prices down.

When searching Newegg for the interface type of your hard drive, make sure you select one of the following for SATA drives:

1. SATA For 1.5 GB/s SATA Interfaces

2. SATA II For 3.0 GB/s SATA Interfaces

3. SATA III For 6.0 GB/s SATA Interfaces

Feel free to swing by the forum if you have any questions.