Q: I’m inquisitive about getting an SSD (solid-state drive) with computer-chip memory to exchange a mechanical hard disk drive. What are the principle variations between SSDs and hard drives?
—Nick Jakubowsky, St. Paul, Minnesota
A: The age of your pc might decide whether or not you may change its hard drive with an SSD.
An older pc wants a SATA (Serial Advanced Technology Attachment) connection to hyperlink to most SSDs. But there have been a number of varieties of SATA connections for the reason that early 2000s, and you may want a pc restore store to let you know in case your PC has the precise one for right this moment’s SSDs.
Reasons why you’d need an SSD:
— SSDs are quicker as a result of they use flash memory (a computer-chip know-how) as a substitute of a rotating disk with a read-write machine suspended above it. Some consultants say an common SSD reads knowledge about 10 occasions quicker and writes knowledge about 20 occasions quicker than a hard drive.
— SSDs are a plus for travellers as a result of they’re lighter and use much less battery energy than disk drives.
— Consumer-priced SSDs now have capacities of 1 terabyte or bigger, akin to disk drives.
— SSDs haven’t any transferring components, so that they’re much less susceptible to put on and tear than disk drives are. However, SSDs do put on out as a result of their circuits work solely a restricted quantity of occasions.
— You needn’t defragment an SSD. Defragmenting a hard drive places entire recordsdata in the identical location, chopping down on knowledge entry time. Defragging a quick SSD will not pace it up.
Reasons why you would not need an SSD:
— SSDs are costlier than disk drives. At greatest, a 1 terabyte SSD prices about twice as a lot as comparable disk drive, and a few SSD fashions value greater than that.
— Even if a hard drive fails, its knowledge is commonly recoverable from the bodily disk. If an SSD fails, its knowledge will most likely be misplaced inside a digital circuit.
Q: My Windows 10 laptop computer crashes (I get a blue display screen and the PC reboots) when I attempt to save a file to a USB flash drive. The identical flash drive works with different PCs. What’s unsuitable?
—Jerry Johnson, Colorado Springs, Colorado
A: The trigger may very well be a flash drive format challenge, or a safety software program drawback. Today’s Windows PCs are formatted with NTFS (New Technology Files System), however the format is not extensively used elsewhere. Flash drives sometimes use the FAT32 (File Allocation Table32) format, which makes them suitable with the Windows, Mac and Linux pc working programs in addition to sensible TVs, cameras and smartphones.
Normally, utilizing a FAT32-formatted flash drive with an NTFS-formatted PC is not a drawback. But an older Windows file referred to as Sysmon (System Monitor) model 11.11 wasn’t suitable with the FAT32 format utilized by flash drives, and it might trigger a PC crash when a flash drive was used. The newest model of the Sysmon software program (model 13.32), would not have this drawback. (You can obtain it at tinyurl.com/yzjr2yj3).
The PC crashing drawback additionally has been linked to flash drives which are encrypted with software program from Check Point Software Technologies. Older variations of the software program used a file referred to as MeDlpFlt.sysCQ (Media Encryption Data Loss Prevention Filter) that brought on the issue (for particulars, see tinyurl.com/yc7s8e6p). If you utilize, or beforehand used, Check Point’s software program, you will have to contact the corporate for assist (entry to the answer is restricted to prospects.) – Star Tribune/Tribune News Service
