What is it that makes an SSD so much faster than an HDD?

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As we mentioned above an HDD has spinning magnetic platters to store the data, and that data is read or written by a series of read/write heads. Each platter has its own head, and the head is moved from the outside of the platter to the inside of the platter by the slide actuator assembly. The head can only be in one place at any one time, and it takes time to move that head from one location to another. Even if it’s only 1mm away, it will still take a few milliseconds to move the head before reading or writing can recommence.
An SSD reads and writes its data from NAND flash, and it’s not uncommon for the SSD controller to have eight channels to transfer data to and from the NAND. Also, the time taken to access the data can be 100 times faster than it is on an HDD. So as well as being capable of 8 times the throughput, it can also access the data much faster than an HDD.
If we compare a few SATA 6Gbps SSDs with one of the fastest HDDs currently available, in a real-world multitasking test, you will find the fastest SSD is very nearly 10 times faster than the HDD.

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