The 15 Winners of the "Explain a Samsung SSD" Contest
Join team Tom's to try to win in Samsung's SSD contest. OPEN WORLDWIDE.
UPDATE: We have our winners! Listed below are the 15 lucky winners who received a 128GB Samsung SSD 830 series. They were chosen at random out of those who entered from Tom's Hardware. Thanks to everyone who entered. Hopefully there will be more contests open worldwide in the near future!
| Name | Entry |
|---|---|
| Syed | The Samsung SSD 830 is a new kind of hard-drive that is several magnitudes faster, allowing significantly faster internet browsing and computer start-up times. |
| Drake | It's like a flash drive except it's on an adrenaline rush and it stays on the inside of the computer |
| Matt | Imagine the pages of a book all see through and you can read them all at the same time super fast and its make sense. That's what an SSD is, a lightning fast thin book of information inside your computer. |
| Justin | Well mom, the difference between a SSD and your hard drive now is that the SSD doesn't make noise, never forgets what you put on it, works faster, all in a small package with a bigger price. No, you cannot marry it. |
| Jamie | You know how an old record player plays vinyls? That's how a hard drive plays your favourite movie, or opens that document: with a needle and a bit of spin. A Samsung SSD 830 Series drive plays more of your records faster, and without the noisy needle and turntable. |
| Bogdan | The SSD830 Series is great because not only it provides insanely high write speeds, but it also provides super high read speeds, which you will highly appreciate, especially if you are a normal/enthusiast PC user. |
| Larry | The Samsung SSD (solid state drive) 830 Series hard drive is better than a traditional hard drive because it has no moving parts which means everything on your computer loads faster. The 830 Series is also faster than many other solid state hard drives on the market. |
| Jeffrey | A SSD is like an ink pen, easy to read, and easy to write with. A HDD is like a paint brush, harder to read when wrote with, and takes longer to write with.For the same reasons that we use pens, computers need SSD's. Speed, Efficiency. |
| Adrian | SSD is like your storeroom where you can store everything and also you can find stuff faster and more efficient. |
| Ben | LOL, mother its the next stage of hard drives. Instead of having spinning disks it uses memory. Which makes it fast, giving you more time to cook dinner. Quite simple really. We evolved. Shame you haven't in 20 years. So what's for dinner? Kfc? |
| Kamal | SSD's are incredibly fast and power efficient, and are replacing hard drives. The Samsung 830 series is more that thrice as fast as a hard drive, while consuming barely 30% it's power, & no marketing gimmicks here! That means that a computer will start in under half a minute! |
| John | A traditional hard drive needs to be spinning at a certain speed to work. This takes some time from a 'standing start'. An SSD doesn't have this requirements and thus works much faster – even though the difference is a fraction of a second each time, it soon mounts up. |
| Johan | An SSD is just a large memory card, like the one you use in your digital camera. Since it has no moving parts, it's faster and less sensitive than a hard drive, that, just like an old record player, has to physically move its stylus to read different data. |
| Khang | An SSD is the same as an HD. It's used by your computer to remember things, like your email or word file. The difference is when you want to open your email - it'll do it much faster. It also doesn't use as much electricity. |
| K. | SSD or Samsung Snap Drive is what you need to get your system going Blazing fast. |
We all know and love solid state drives. If you have 'em, you love 'em; if you don't, you want 'em. Heck, even if you have 'em, you want more. Everyone should get the opportunity to enjoy the benefits of an SSD – including your mother.
How would you even explain to your mother (or anyone who is not quite tech-savvy) exactly is what an SSD and why it's so great? (Or even why she should buy you one for Christmas!)
That's exactly what Samsung would like to know and it's making a contest out of it. Samsung is asking you for a simple, comprehensible explanation, in no more than 50 words of what a Samsung SSD 830 series is and what its product benefits are. (Hint: you can find some of those in our review if you need some help.)
The winning entry will be decided by an independent judging panel, which will evaluate on: The best explanation of what an SSD is; with an emphasis on simplicity of language, ease of comprehension, creativity and key product benefits.
The best entry will win a top-of-the-range custom-built PC from Samsung:
| Hardware | Component |
|---|---|
| Processor | Intel i7-2600K 3.4GHz |
| Motherboard | Asus Maximus IV Extreme-Z S1155 |
| Memory | (2 x Samsung) 4GB 1600 UDIMM Modules. |
| Video/Graphics Card | EVGA GeForce GTX 560 Ti |
| SSD | Samsung SSD 830 Series (512GB) |
| Optical Drive | Samsung sh-222ab |
| Case | Thermaltake V9 BlacX |
| Power Supply | Corsair Enthusiast Series 750-Watt |
| Monitor | Samsung B2430H |
| Keyboard | Samsung pleomax k-300 black |
| Mouse | Samsung PLEOMAX; USB; Wireless; Optical Mouse; MOC-315B (MOC315B) |
| OS | Windows 7 x64 Home Premium |
There is also another dimension to winning Samsung's contest, and that's through some friendly competition. Tom's Hardware is competing against other outlets to see whose readers will submit the greatest number of entries. If Tom's Hardware emerges victorious with the biggest pile of entries, 15 Samsung 830 SSD 128 GB will be awarded to Tom's Hardware fans. This is a team effort!
Best of all, this contest is open worldwide to those age 18 and older. Furthermore, this contest will also accept entries in French, Spanish, German, and Italian (yes, the terms and conditions say English-only, but we've confirmed multilingual entries with Samsung). Please be sure to read the full terms and conditions on the entry form for the full details.
Ready? Submit your best SSD explanation here.
Contest closes at 7 a.m. EST December 12, 2011 and winners will be announce on or around December 16, 2011.
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An SSD has no moving parts and is faster than a magnetic drive. That's all they need to know.
An SSD has no moving parts and is faster than a magnetic drive. That's all they need to know.
But how do they know what a magnetic drive is or does?
It has a very fast boot sequence. That's all they need to know.
ok mom, turn on you computer...now turn on mine.
Mom it is a big memory card that makes the computer load up faster
I give up. My mother barely know's what a computer is. I wouldn't even TRY to explain what an SSD is!
As how I explained it to my mother.
Me: Hey Mom guess what SSD's are awesome wanna see why?
Mom: Sure I guess?
Me: -Throws Western Digital Terabyte on ground and it no longer works.
Mom: WHAT THE HELL!
Me: Throws Kingston SSD on the ground, still works.
Cool right
Mom: Yes, but why'd you destroy your terabyte!
Me: Pfft, you kidding that was my friend Billys.
Billy: WHAT THE F--- BRO!
Good times.
-True Story-
Mom, think of your pet hamster and how cute it is as it runs on its wheel. Then feed it some crystal meth and watch it turn the wheel so quickly, his whole cage shakes and he shrieks with joy at his new found speed. That's an SSD.
I am so not going to win this contest...
The least tech savvy people would probably understand:
Know how you have to wait a minute or two after turning a computer on to start doing stuff?
Well, with these, it as well as starting other applications (things) takes mere seconds.
Or are we assuming the person we are explaining it to also has some other handicaps?
I wouldn't. I generally operate on the "if you don't know what an SSD is, you probably don't need it" theory. If she asks me why I bought one, I'll just tell her it's new tech and she'll understand why I bought it...
A SSD is like a light switch. When you flip the switch, light immediately comes on. A SSD make softwares you use open instantly when you click on it.
That's the best I can think of right now.
This was my entry =D
SSD Super Speedy Drive. No more waiting to do the things you want to do on the computer. Allowing more time to do the housework.
It's a Really Really big Super Thumb Drive that goes REALLY REALLY FAST and makes every other computer part Happy!
My mother is cisco certified architect
This is easier than you guys think. Moms are not stupid. Just tell them a hard drive spins like a record player only faster, and is made out of the same material as an 8track tape(close enough for moms). Then tell them a SSD is solid state components like a transistor radio...no moving parts, no wires, no vacuum tubes, no magnets, no nothing.
"There's a charged void crystal inside -- No, it won't explode. Oh, it stores data by phase shifting them to another dimension, and yes, it shifts them back when you need them. Sounds cool right?"
Pretend you are shopping, you have 100 items to pickup. You have to physically move to each item you wish to pickup. No matter how quick a shopper, picking up 100 items will still take a certain amount of time. The is essentially how a conventional hard drive works. It has to follow a physical path to pick up each piece of data. Now imagine if you had to pickup those same 100 items and instead of having to follow a physical path all you had to do was think of the next item and you were instantly in front of it. This would cut down your shopping time considerably. This is essentially how a solid state drive works. A conventional hard drive has to follow a physical path a solid state drive has direct access to each piece of data thereby increasing data collection and storage immensely.
If your oven has a Samsung 830 SSD, baking has gone from minutes down to seconds.
It's a really big, really fast thumbdrive.
It's floppy drive.
It's like a hard drive but faster, smaller and way more expensive.
It's what Steve Jobs would have sold you, even if you didn't need one or even if you didn't have a computer.
Dear Mom,
Your new Laptop's came with an internal SSD drive also called "solid state drive" which uses a bunch of computer chips which store your data. The old hard drives used spinning disks similar to a record player but are capable of reading and writing. Now the best part about your new SSD drive is it's fast, no more going to get yell at dad while waiting for your PC to turn on! You may also want to know if you throw your laptop at dad (by accident) you won't lose any data or have to log back into Facebook because you had a blue screen, the SSD drives simply have no moving parts to break.
We still need and edit on this site .... It's "" floppy drive.
The SSD will make Crysis load faster mom!
Second Post to make people cry... Mum it can play crysis!
(yes i did kinda copy u Flinstone3390)
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.
You see when a hard disk and USB flash drive love each other very, very much...
An SSD is a storage drive like your current hard drive, but since it does not have rotating discs in it, it is many many times faster. Just picture the HD as a wheel rolling down the hill, and the solid state drive as a lightning bolt. Allowing your laptop to boot much faster, and get that excel file you are working on to open much quicker, and makes practically everything you do quicker.
it's a race car vs. a horse and buggy.
A solid state drive is like a thumb drive, but 50 times faster, meaning that it makes your whole computer run faster and u never have to wait on it
Being less tech-savvy doesn't mean being dumb... my mom knows what an HDD is and explaining what an SSD is was rather easy. Now I just have to get myself one and show her how awesome it is!
Now, when you're making me sandwich, your speed is like a HDD.
But when I gather 50 other mothers from the suburb, give them a whole stack of bread, butter and ham and tell them to make sandwiches, they will make a lot more sandwiches in the same amount of time that it took you to make one. This can be likened to the speed of an SSD.
An SSD is like that, but only it doesn't make sandwiches, and it costs a whole lot more. And that's all you need to know, other than the fact that you will be the one funding my endeavours to buy said SSD.
Speedy thing goes in, speedy thing comes out.