What’s up everybody? It’s Eddie Z here from EZ Trading Computers. And you’re watching Trading Computer Secrets.
In this video, we’re going to talk about the best hard drives for traders called Solid State Hard Drives, and why you absolutely need one for your trading computer.
But before we get started, you might be wondering…
What exactly is a hard drive anyway?
Your hard drive is basically a storage device where your computer stores all the instructions for all the programs when your computer is off.
So when you first turn your computer on, the computer goes to the hard drive to pull up all of the instructions for Windows and any other programs you open, and then puts those instructions into the computer’s Random Access Memory – or the RAM – so it can use those instructions in real time.
The hard drive is where you store Windows and all your trading programs, as well as your workspaces, documents, movies, and music, when the computer is off. It stores everything when the computer is off.
Now it’s important not to confuse the hard drive with the computer’s memory – or the RAM – because the RAM is the place your computer puts all the instructions it needs to operate when the computer is on. When your computer shuts down, all the instructions in the RAM disappear.
Every computer needs to have a hard drive. And, as it turns out, the hard drive is the one place that can really cause a speed bottleneck. So as traders and power users, we really want the fastest hard drives available.
Up until the last few years, all computers came with an old-school standard magnetic hard drive. These old drives have spinning disks inside and a read/write head that moves across the disk to read and write information. The biggest issues with these old drives is that (1) they are slow and (2) they have moving parts.
The problem with moving parts is they wear out and they’re sensitive to getting bumped around. For example, if you have one of those old drives in a laptop.
Have you ever had your hard drive fail? It’s a horrible experience.
The great news is that the latest and greatest breakthrough technology is something called the Solid State Drive or SSD.
SSDs use flash technology to store information. The biggest advantage of flash memory and flash technology is that they use Silicon chips that have no moving parts whatsoever.
Think of your smartphone. It has flash memory inside of it. And it’s storing all of your apps and your pictures and your music.
Because they have no moving parts whatsoever, they are way more reliable and can actually take a bit of a beating. Think how many times you’ve dropped your cell phone.
The next great thing about SSDs is that they are radically faster than standard hard drives.
Without getting super technical, the latest versions of SSDs are something called NVME drives. They are up to 50 times faster than old-school hard drives. And since the hard drive is a major speed bottleneck of your computer, you definitely want an NVME solid state drive in your computer.
With an NVME, your computer will boot up in just a few seconds, and your trading applications will load nearly instantaneously. Having an NVME SSD is a major improvement in your trading and your overall computing experience.
Now, a quick word of warning.
Be careful of computer vendors that sell machines advertising just plain SSDs. Make sure it’s an NVME SSD, because the first generations of SSDs were definitely slower. And, as traders, we want the fastest and most reliable technology available.
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Thanks for watching, and if you haven’t already, please feel free to download our Complete Guide to Trading Computers by clicking the link. This guide is packed with great tips so you can totally optimize your trading experience.
Lastly, if you are in the market for a new trading computer, go ahead and check out our latest sale.
My name’s Eddie Z. Thanks for watching. And I’ll see you in the next video.