How Would You Explain an SSD to Your Mother?

[alidan]

[citation][nom]ta152h[/nom]I don't have one, and I don't want one, so the precept is wrong. Is there an alternative prize? Having already explain basic computer concepts, it would be comparatively easy to explain to my mother, but if one was to assume someone that knew little about technology, it's always best to keep things very simple, even if it means sacrificing some accuracy. I'd just say it makes starting things go faster, but does not make much difference with something after it's already started. The downside is it's more expensive for the capacity. Anything more, you get a glassy, confused look, and they give up understanding any of it, and just figure they'll ask their equally uninformed friend, who'll give an answer she heard from someone else (her cousin's dog trainer, who's a nerd so must know), but somehow is simple enough to make sense (and inaccurate enough to be detrimental to her understanding). So, you don't bring up the failure with write cycles, or power characteristics, or thermal differences, or different types of SSDs, or talk about magnetic media, or ever mention "Winchester" technology, or talk about differences between RAM and "permanent" storage, etc... I learned the hard way, when you tell people more than they want to hear, or get it accurate enough to where you feel comfortable with what you've said, you lost your audience by the second sentence.[/citation]

mom asks me what a harddrive is, i tell her it stores stuff, little brother has 250gb, he wants 2000gb and that is enough to make he tell me to stop talking as she goes back to watching "real world" "wedding dress show" "fashion show" or something equally mid rotting, and i question how i ever got as smart as i am when i came and lived in the same environment as her.

 

[marraco]

-It's faster than a cheeta, and more reliable.
-It haves best colors.
-It's cooler than dulce de leche ice cream.
-It makes you smarter, and looking less dumb.
-Does not have virus.

Well that works with iZombies

 

[marraco]

Shut up, and buy it.

 

[vic20]

Hey mom! Ever wonder why they say computers get faster all the time, but yours doesn't feel much faster than your old one?

It's because the part inside your computer that stores and loads Windows, your programs and pictures and stuff, called the hard drive, hasn't gotten much faster over the years. Its holding back the rest of the new computer technology.

The hard drive has moving parts inside and those parts can only move so fast. It takes time for some parts of it to find your stuff, then more time for other parts of it to load things or save stuff.

This is a really old way of doing things, so they came out with these hard drive replacements called SSDs. Instead of moving parts, they just use chips. They can find stuff instantly, and load and save things many times faster than hard drives.

So with an SSD, Windows starts in seconds, programs install, update and open in seconds, and the computer can wake up from sleep instantly. Pretty cool huh?

They don't tend to hold as much as hard drives do, and are a bit more expensive, but when you can start doing everyday tasks like Windows updates and virus scans in seconds rather than minutes, I'm sure you'll agree its worth buying.

 

[christop]

I would say remember record players. Well older hard drive are like a record player. They have a disk like a record for data. Now the newer ssd has memory chips that store data and is as fast as turning on a light.

 

[brisser]

A hard disk is like a record player...an SSD is like rainman in the casino.

 

[dgingeri]

A Solid state drive is like a hard drive, but it's done with no moving parts, so it's much faster and more reliable.

 

[resetrsx]

Me: Hey Mom, a hard drive is like a night with a male stripper, and an SSD is like a night with a 40 year old virgin.

Mom: Ok.. I get it now. Thanks.

 

[Guest]

The good old hard drive stores ones and zeros for you.

To read those ones and zeros, the drive needs to spin a couple of silver dollar-sized discs and move a pickup head to exactly there spot your desired ones and zeros are recorded.

This pretty fast. Like milliseconds.

The new Solid State Drives store ones and zeros too.

To access your ones and zeros in the SSD, just tell it the location of your data.
This is done at the speed of light.
Pretty fast!

 

[soulfringe]

The standard HDD is like the martial artist guy who goes into a fight and does all kinds of crazy moves and flips. Guy is pretty awesome right? Well the SSD comes on the scene and fights like the Old Kung Fu master who doesn't do anything flashy and just takes a step to the side avoiding a kick and counters with a single punch.

Kung Fu master won because he didn't waste movement. All that spinning around is not as effective as a simple focused attack.

 

[LuckyDucky7]

An SSD is an upgrade for a PC.

It's dramatically faster than a hard drive is.
It's like having 16 hard drives in your machine all working at once.

It makes programs load faster, and makes the computer start faster.
The system will respond as fast as you can think.

 

[jisamaniac]

Mom, a SSD is like having 1000 Commodore 64s. Now will you upgrade, please?!

 

[razor512]

SSD's are significantly faster than a standard hard drive but cost more.

Doesn't get much simpler than that.

Also unless you don't have hands, there is no one who cant replace a hard drive them self. (unless they have an imac which makes tasks that were traditionally simple enough for a gold fish to perform if they had hands, into a long task that requires you to run multiple high end air filters to reduce the amount of dust that gets in between the faceplate and screen)

Depending on the mac, I usually have to vacuum the carpet thoroughly along with the walls and ceiling, then run a box fan with a quality filter taped to the back for a few hours and repair the imac wearing nothing but underwear in order to reduce the risk of getting dust in between the LCD and the face plate

 

[igot1forya]

An SSD is JUST like love - Everyone wants it, no one can afford to buy it, and has never been given it by someone else who hasn't regretted it or wanted to take it back the moment they gave it away.

 

[Temp_Username]

Take mom to a race track.
In the race are a old AMC Gremlin and a new Porsche.
Mom the Gremlin is what you have and the Porsche is the ssd.
Its so fast that it will make your head spin.

 

[Ichy]

I'm not participating, dunno if its been said but I think "An SSD is to hard drives like a Dvd, or Blue ray disc is to Vinyl".

 

[Guest]

Hoping to win a 128GB SSD My computer could really use the boost (sempron 2400+).

Although i would happily accept the gaming rig too, would be spread out for parts so the whole family gets upgrades. Since I'm a SFF kind of person, i'd just keep the monitor, ssd, ram, cpu (i7 in mITX me likes).

 

[Guest]

Reading this makes me wonder if half the people on here have very technical and computer skilled mothers. I am used to explain to her how a mouse works, and how you turn a laptop on. Which means using a much less technical explanation.

E.g. something like this:
"A solid state drive is a kind of book for in your computer. It is a special kind of book which is always in the right page, so you never have to browse. This makes it much faster then a normal book."

No mention of rotating platters.
No mention of boot time (she would not know what 'booting' is.
...
Books. Old fashioned dead-tree technology. Now that is old enough for mum and pop explanations.

 

[hennes]

Reading this makes me wonder if half the people on here have very technical and computer skilled mothers. I am used to explain to her how a mouse works, and how you turn a laptop on. Which means using a much less technical explanation.

E.g. something like this:
"A solid state drive is a kind of book for in your computer. It is a special kind of book which is always in the right page, so you never have to browse. This makes it much faster then a normal book."

No mention of rotating platters.
No mention of boot time (she would not know what 'booting' is.
...
Books. Old fashioned dead-tree technology. Now that is old enough for mum and pop explanations.

 

[dmmbbs]

Only one winner has been announced by Samsung. What about 15 community winners?

 

[dmmbbs]

Tomshardware won!

 

[phatslug]

Yep, looks like Toms won the community contest. Wonder how they're going to give those 15 drives out to us readers. Here was my entry --

"Imagine supercharging yourself. Becoming lightning quick. Doing more things at once. And being stronger than ever. Unfortunately, such a thing can only be imagined. However, there's something that can now be supercharged... your computer. So that everything you do on it is faster and better.

Samsung SSD. Reclaim your time."

And drat... I didn't win. :/

 

[Shadow20]

A bit disappointing i didnt win oh well i was pretty confident in my entry lol. Anyone has any idea regarding the community prize as to how it will be distributed and when?
If i am lucky maybe i can win one of the SSDs

 

[yvsmadhav]

mom,using SSD is like using a pressure cooker for cooking, it requires less time and energy and is more reliable and safe

 

[warmon6]

[:mousemonkey:3]