Solid State Drives are the fastest of the alternatives generally considered but at a relatively high cost per GB, they are typically limited for storing the OS and programs. Having an SSD does squat for items that aren't stored on itwhich will generally include 95% of folks gaming libraries. SSD speeds are the same no matter where data is stored on it.
Hard Drives are at the other end of the spectrum, with the slowest speed and the lowest cost per GB. HD speed depends on **where** the data is stored with items on the outer edge of the disk about twice as fast as the inner edge. This is one reason why many folks partition HDs so that the stuff they want to be fast, they put on the 1st (outside partition) and save the inner partitions for the stuff that isn't impacted by speed. HD speed does not actually change over time. However it may seem so if the disk gets heavily fragmented.... that goes away after maintenance.
A Hybrid Drive or SSHD is a bit of both. It studies your usage patterns, and puts the most frequently used files on the SSD portion and leaves the less frequently used files on the mechanical disk portion of the drive,
The hard part for consumers, is that misinformation abounds and what is the real question ? Is the focus on speed for the sake of speed ...or speed for the sake of actually accomplishing anything as a result of the extra performance of which the drive is capable ? A good corrollary is overclocking GFX cards.... If one OCs to 1950 and one to 1900 but, due to Boost 3, both deliver 65.3 fps. Do you want to pay more just because "it's faster" even if it's not delivering any measurable benefit ?
The reality is ... the weakest link in PC performance is the user. If you run an MS Office script on each of the above, you would conclude that the SSD was fastest, the SSHD 2nd and the HD 3rd. And while that is what the benchmark will show us, the reality is that 3 users each actually making keystrokes will finish at the same time.
When you open a word proccessing file, does it really matter if it opens in 0.2 or 0.8 seconds ? You ability to respond, is far longer than that. Now if you wanted to prove that an SSD is faster, you could copy / paste 500MB of files and you would be able to notice the time difference ... but it's unlikely you have ever done that on a regular basis if ever. And it's unlikely, outside of specialized applications and benchmarks, that two *typical* users one with a SSHD and one with an SSD would show any difference in productivity, outside of specialized applications. We did a blind comparison over 6 months and no one was able to tell the difference.
Here's some data:
SSD Boot Time = 15.6 seconds
SSHF Boot Time = 16.5 seconds
HD Boot Time = 21.2 seconds
This is probably the best example of whether the answer has any impact... depends on how ya phrase the question
Which option is capable of putting the user to work on their 1st project of the day faster ? The answer is obviously the SSD.
Which option actually puts the user to work on their 1st project of the day faster ? In 99% of cases, neither.
Because if you actually observe people after starting their PCs ... before the 1st keystroke, we see them for example, taking off jacket, listening to phone messages, getting coffee, checking their inbox (the one with papers), greeting colleagues ... reading the boss's red handwritten edits to the document they have to edit in MS Word, CAD Operator reading engineers red markups ... either the way, the PC is booted and MS Word / AutoCAD opened long before they are ready to to make the 1st keystroke.
Who makes the 1st keystroke in AutoCAD ? Using actual measured test results on same rig ....
SSD that boots in 15.6 seconds and opens AutoCAD file in 27.6
SSHD that boots in 16.5 seconds and opens AutoCAD file in 27.6
HD that boots in 21.2 seconds and opens AutoCAD file in 27.6
User A sits down at one of the above, hits the ON button and then checks his phone messages and To Do Lists left in his inbox while machine boots and is still reading for 1.5 minutes after the PC is done booting. After finishes looking at his tasks for the day, noting that the Bayberry Strip Mall Site Plan has the highest priority, double clicks on the file to start AutoCAD .. while the program and drawing loads, he is reviewing the drawing to make sure he understands the changes which need to be made.
Now it doesn't matter which of the 3 hardware configurations "User A* sits down at because he was multitasking ... using the time while the machine did what he needed to do in a productive manner w/ all of those tasks needing to be performed before the 1st keystroke. A cost / benefit analysis using actual users, will never show an increase in productivity outside of very specialized applications such as video editing, animation, rendering, etc. Now if that user sits down and stares at his screen for the 15.6 versus 21.6 seconds, I would expect that they would easily be able to notice the difference and perhaps fell a bit smug about the increased speed / 5.6 seconds saved .... but as for getting actual work done, he's 15.6 seconds behind the guy w/ the HD as that guy was productive during the 15.6 seconds, and never even noticed how long it took to boot.
It's kinda like asking how much faster ... the 160 mph Porsche is for commuting to work as opposed to a SUV that would make you jittery at 85.... the reality is, in morning rush hour 35 mph traffic, you simply are incapable of taking any real advantage of the vehicles that the car can provide.
Now if doing video editing, rendering etc, the speed difference will be valuable as you can initiate a task that will take minutes, even hours. But on the desktop, we may like knowing that the SSD is faster, but 99% of us simply aren't able to accomplish anything with he time saved.
That being said, I have two SSDs and two SSHDs in my personal system. When building for other users, especially where budgets are limited, we start with a 2TB SSD as the base recommendation, w/ a 250 GB partition for OS and programs. An SSD can be added later, set up the same way ... the 1st partition than can a) be retained as a Backup OS install .... b) Wiped and set aside for the things that won't fit on the SSD but we want to be the most responsive or c) just merged into the rest of the drive.
The thing with the SSHD again is that over time it gets faster and faster with your most used files. So lets look at the long term where the SSD was added later ... your game library won't fit on the SSD but now that PC is updated, let's say you added far Cry 3 and 4 to your game collection. After the 1st time you play FC3, you will find things loading faster and faster as the drive recognizes that it is "frequently used" and FC3's files are stored on the SSD portion. Then once you finish FC3, and start playing FC4, FC3's file will get pushed off and replaced by the now more frequently used files from FC4 .. all automatically.
You can see the effect in THGs gaming test results here where the SSHD is a bit more than 50% faster than the WD Black
http://www.tomshardware.com/charts/hdd-charts-2013/-17-PCMark-7-Gaming,2915.html
The SSHD will cost ya about the same as most HDs w/ 5 year warrantees.
Seagate SSHD Fire CUDA 2 TB w/ 5 year warranty / 0.43% failure rate* ($93.99)
https://pcpartpicker.com/product/tR2kcf/seagate-internal-hard-drive-st2000dx001
WD Black WD2003FZEX w/ 5 year warranty / 0.45% failure rate ($122.33)
https://pcpartpicker.com/product/XtjG3C/western-digital-internal-hard-drive-wd2003fzex
* Failure rate is for previous model, latest model is too new to obtain statistically relevant results.
Failure rates
http://www.hardware.fr/articles/954-6/disques-durs.html
0,45% WD Black WD2003FZEX
0,43% Seagate Desktop SSHD ST2000DX001
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