Compare and contrast traditional hard disk drives and solid-state drives in terms of their
general features as well as how they write/read/delete data and pros/cons in terms of digital
forensics.
Traditional hard disk drives are data storage devices which use electromechanical
components. Solid State Drives (SSDs) are newer data storage devices which use
semiconductor technology and have no moving parts, therefore, running silently. SSDs use
close to the same technology as USB flash drives and other non-volatile devices as well.
There are many ways to compare and contrast the two drives in relation to their features
and digital forensics.
First, I will compare their features. SSDs are typically faster, more reliable, relatively more
deterministic in read performance, and have extremely low latency times when compared
with traditional hard disk drives. However, with SSDs, maximum capacity is lower, there
is a higher chance of power loss, and there is a lower storage density. It is particularly
important to note that SSDs are known for fast random access for reading, and having
limited write (erase) cycles. On vaultnetwork.com the SSD was compared with the
traditional hard disk in saying that “When failures occur, they tend to occur either ‘on
write’, or ‘on erase’, rather than ‘on read’. With traditional HDDs, failure tends to occur
‘on read’. If the drive detects failure on write, data can be written to a new cell without
data loss occurring”. The principals of how drives write, read, and delete data are highly
