Why is an SSD more expensive than an HDD?

When I pick up a computer for an upgrade, I quite often get asked ‘Why is an SSD more expensive than an HDD?’ The short answer is because of performance, technology, capacity, power consumption, form factor and durability.

If you’re looking for a solid-state drive (SSD) and need some help deciding whether an HDD or SSD is the right choice for your computer, read on.

This article will help you decide which type of storage is best for your computing experience. We have already mentioned that how SSDs improve the performance of a computer here.

To inform readers why an SSD costs more than an HDD, so they may better understand what each option offers in terms of performance and potential price point without much technical knowledge about computers.

Why are HDDs cheaper than SSDs?

There are a few main reasons that explain why SSDs are usually more expensive than HDDs but the key ones are – performance, technology and capacity.

Performance

First and foremost, SSDs are much faster than HDDs. This increased speed is due to the way data is stored on an SSD vs an HDD. With an HDD, data is scattered about on multiple spinning discs (platters). This means that it takes longer for the read/write head to access all of the data that you’re trying to save or access. With an SSD, all of the data is stored in a single location and can be accessed very quickly. This decreased access time makes SSDs ideal for devices that need fast storage, such as gaming consoles, laptops, and phones. The difference in read/write speeds between the two are quite significant, where SSDs are capable of reading data at speeds 6-10 times faster than HDDs.

Technology

Another reason for the higher price of SSDs is that they are newer technology. They’ve only been around since the mid-2000s, while HDDs have been around since the 1950s. This means that there is a higher demand for SSDs than HDDs, and as a result, they cost more.

Capacity

Capacity is another factor that brings about the high price of an SSD. The physical size of an SSD is significantly smaller compared to an HDD, thus making it more expensive to produce.

Durability

SSDs (especially those from Samsung) are at least 2-5 times more durable than HDDs from our experience and tests.

Other factors include

Power consumption

SSDs use less power than HDDs. This is because an HDD requires a lot of power to spin its platters, while an SSD does not. This lower power consumption makes SSDs more desirable for devices that need to stay powered on for long periods of time, such as laptops and phones.

Form factor

SATA SSDs only come in 2.5″ form factor hence they are more expensive to manufacture. NVME SSD are even smaller and can fit in literally the smallest handheld device. These SSDs are hence even more expensive to manufacture.

What are the key differences between and HDD and SSD?

We will compare two types of solid-state storage – the HDD and the SSD.

Here are their most notable differences for quick reference:

Mechanical parts vs non-mechanical parts

An HDD consists of rotating platters which contain magnetic material stored on them while an SSD has no moving parts due to its lack of mechanical components like hard discs do; they consist instead of flash memory chips for data storage. An HDD can store more data in comparison to an SSD because HDDs can have larger platters and more platter space. RAM is the other type of solid-state storage that has no moving parts, but it’s much faster than both an HDD and an SSD. However, ram memory is also much more expensive than hard drives or SSD.

Weight

An HDD weighs about 200 times as much as a typical 2.5 inch SSD and has approximately 7 times the surface area. It uses less power and generates less heat compared to hard drives due to its lack of moving parts; thus making them very attractive for desktop PCs. An HDD consists primarily of magnetic material on spinning discs (platters); which stores data in magnetization-induced rotational latency while an SSD uses flash memory chips, which are more expensive than hard disks. SSD is lighter than HDD and has low power consumption.

Storage technology

SSD uses oxide semiconductor to store data while HDD uses magnetic material on spinning discs (platters) to store data in magnetization-induced rotational latency

Price differences

A traditional HDD storage device, or Hard Disk Drive, costs around $0.04 per gigabyte while an SSD storage device runs anywhere from $1-$5 per gigabyte depending upon the type of memory used in the SSD. This means that a typical 128GB SSD will run you between $100-$500+ whereas a traditional 1TB HDD will only cost you around $40-$50.

A final note

Overall, there are several reasons why SSDs cost more than HDDs. Their speed, newer technology, and lower power consumption all play a role in this increased cost. While HDDs are still the more popular option, SSDs are becoming increasingly more common, and their price is likely to continue to drop as demand increases. However, if you upgrade your computer to an SSD, we can gurantee you that you will find a big difference.