Traditionally hard drives have featured thin magnetic platters spinning at very high speeds. As the years have passed, the density of data on each platter has grown. Unfortunately there is a limit to the speed at which the platters can spin and a mechanical arm moves over the platters to find the precise piece of data needed at any given time.

In the last couple of years, a new type of drive has appeared on the scene. A solid state drive has no platters and no moving parts. The upside is that the drives are really fast. The downside is that they don’t hold as much data and they cost a lot more than a traditional hard drive. There is also a limitation to the number of types that data can be written to the drive. While it is a limitation, it is a high enough number that it most likely won’t be reached under normal usage.

If you are going to use a solid state drive, it would most likely be used as a drive for the operating system and then you’d use a conventional hard drive for your data. This gives you speed where you need it most while still giving you a high capacity for data at a reasonable cost.

The Patriot Torqx drives are some of the fastest drives on the market. They connect via SATA and are available in three sizes: 64 GB, 128 GB and 256 GB. Prices range from under $250 to nearly $700. Like I said, they aren’t cheap. But they are really fast and could be worth their weight in gold if your hard drive is slowing down your workflow.