What is an Solid State Hard Drive?
What is an Solid State Hard Drive?
A solid state drive (ssd) is a device used for storing your data. It is different from a hard disk drive (hdd) in that solid state drives have no moving parts whereas a hard disk drive does have moving parts. The ssd hard drive uses microchips to store its information instead of spinning disks which makes it super fast in comparison to a spinning disk drive. SSD hard drives tend to be less susceptible to physical shock, and they run silently with lower access time and latency. Using a solid state drive would be similar to plugging in a very large capacity flash drive.
The main parts of an ssd hard drive are the controller and the memory. There are other components but they vary according to the manufacturer.
The controller acts as a bridge between the memory and your computer. It is an embedded processor with many functions. Some of its functions are error correction, wear leveling, read scrubbing, read and write caching, encryption and more.
SSD memory can either be flash based or DRAM based. Most companies that manufacture ssd hard drives use non-volatile NAND flash memory (It is not as expensive as DRAM). This gives the equipment the ability to hold onto its data without a constant power supply, thereby keeping your information safe if there is a power outage. 
SSDs that use DRAM are very fast in accessing their data. They usually have either an internal battery or an external power source as well as back up storage systems. If there is a power outage, the built in battery stores your info until power is restored.
There are some down points to the ssd hard drive: it tends to be more expensive and it typically will support only a limited number of writes during its life.
Several types of ssds are the internal ssd hard drive, the external ssd hard drive, and a hybrid which is a combinations of ssd and hhd features. Since solid state drives use the same hook ups as hard disk drives, they could easily be used to replace a hard disk drive. See more reviews at External Hard Drives Review
