Data storage technology has greatly evolved from very small data capacity to large Tera bytes. Web hosting services were popularly using HDD and after the advent of SSD, hosting providers mention it as a privilege in their hosting service. But what difference does a shift from HDD to SSD make in the web hosting service? Let us understand what HDD and SSD mean and how they work in order to fully grasp their work in the web hosting platform.
What Is The Difference Between HDD And SSD?
HDD means Hard Disk Drive which was popularly used till 2009. Initially there were floppy disks which can hold kilobyte size data and slowly the technology evolved into terabyte capacity. HDD uses metal disk and is mounted on a wheel that spins it. A sensor on the drive head finds the data, reads it and sends it to the processing unit. There are different speeds at which the hard disk works. And this speed along with the bus specification determines the working speed of the HDD.
On the other hand, SSD means Solid State Drive and literally it is in the solid state without any moving parts. Unlike an HDD, SSD doesn’t have any moving parts and works 20 times faster than a HDD. Its construction is similar to a RAM chip and can transfer data 95% more data in a given time than an HDD. SSDs were heavily priced despite their low storage compared to HDD. But the current scenario is changing to SSD and the prices have started to normalize. Since there is a chance for devices with moving parts to fail constantly, SSDs were successful in achieving good reliability when compared to SSD. Many cheap cpanel hosting providers give SSD hosting to their users due to its high data transfer capacity and reliability.
How Does HDD And SSD Affect Web Hosting?
It is all about speed of data access and transfer when it comes to hosting. So naturally SSDs are faster and more reliable than HDD. Hard disk drives result in slower response rate than SSD. So, hosting providers have started to shift from HDD to SSD. Customers get better performance with SSD. Another important entity is the price. SSD hosting services are costlier than HDD due to the price. Service providers still maintain the margin to differentiate the SSD from HDD by showing an increased price for SSD hosting service.
With that said, we have now understood the differences between SSD and HDD. Also, we have briefly went over the basic differences that can occur in website hosting with both the disk drives. SSD show a clear advantage when compared to HDD in web hosting services.