Solid State Drive

Hello. My name is Solid State Drive, but my friends all call me SSD. I bet you’ve met me before, even if you didn’t know it. I live inside speedy computers, super-fun game consoles, and even in some phones. I'm the one who holds all your favorite games, pictures, and school projects safely inside. Before I came along, my older cousin, the Hard Disk Drive, did most of the work. He was a good helper, but he was a bit noisy and slow. That’s because he had tiny spinning discs inside, like a little record player. Whenever he needed to find something, he would have to whir and click and spin to get there. I’m much different. I’m quiet, strong, and super speedy.

Back in the day, people were getting a little tired of waiting. They would press the power button on their computer and have to wait and wait for it to be ready. They wanted to start playing their games or drawing their pictures right away. They needed a helper that was as fast as their ideas. That's when some very clever engineers had a brilliant thought. They imagined a way to store information without any moving parts at all. My amazing secret is something called flash memory. You can think of it like millions and millions of tiny light switches inside me. I can flip them on or off in the blink of an eye to remember everything you save. I don't have to spin or search like my cousin, the Hard Disk Drive. The information is just there, instantly. A team of smart engineers at a company called SanDisk used this idea to create the first version of me in 1991. My superpower is that I am completely still and silent. This makes me much stronger if a laptop gets bumped, and it helps save battery power. But the most important thing is that it makes me incredibly fast.

So what does all my speed do for you?. When you turn on a computer that has me inside, it wakes up in just a few seconds. Poof. It’s ready to go. When you want to play a game, I help it load all the exciting worlds and characters in a snap, so you don't have to stare at a loading screen. That fun drawing app you like?. I open it right away so your amazing ideas can pop onto the screen. I help make everything you do on a computer feel zippy and fun. Have you ever noticed how some laptops are super thin and light?. That’s partly my doing. Because I don't need all that room for spinning parts, computers can be made smaller. I love my job of making technology faster and easier for everyone. I help you play, learn, and create without any boring waiting, and I'm always getting even better at it.