Do you know what eMMC is? Do you know what SSD is? Will you select an eMMC or SSD for your laptop? If you have no idea about these questions, please read the following post carefully, in which Partition Magic explains eMMC vs SSD to you.
What Is eMMC?
In fact, when it comes to laptop PC storage, four different storage types come to your mind: SSD, HDD, Hybrid hard drive, and eMMC. But how much do you know about them?
Generally speaking, eMMC is one variant of MMC which is a memory card standard used for solid-state storage. MMC has various variants: RS-MMC, DV-MMC, MMCplus and MMCmobile, MMCmicro, MiCard, SecureMMC and eMMC, etc.
eMMC full form refers to embedded MultiMediaCard. It is an internal storage card widely used in portable devices because of its relatively low price and small size.
eMMC is used in portable devices such as smartphones, digital cameras, entry-level laptops, tablets, and even some removable devices. You can also use eMMC on computers or laptops. There is one thing special about eMMC: you can enlarge the internal storage capacity of a laptop equipped with EMMC by inserting a memory card into its memory card slot.
Although since 2018, companies seldom build MMC slots (SD cards are more common), as the main means of integrated storage in portable devices, eMMC is still widely used in consumer electronics.
eMMC offers a flash memory system at a low cost. Its built-in controller can stay in Android or Windows phones and cost-effective PCs. It can be displayed as a bootable device in the host interface instead of more expensive solid-state storage, such as a solid-state drive.
eMMC has both flash memory and a flash memory controller integrated on the same silicon die. It is composed of a kind of embedded storage solution with a MultiMediaCard interface, flash memory, and a master controller.
What’s more, the eMMC price is cheap and it is a kind of cost-effective storage device.
What Is SSD?
SSD stands for Solid State Drive. It is also sometimes called a solid-state device or a solid-state disk. SSD is a solid-state storage device that employs integrated circuits as storage to permanently store data.
Compared with traditional HDDs, SSDs enjoy the best performance and highest price instead. In addition, SSDs are more able to withstand physical impacts. Moreover, SSDs enjoy faster read-and-write speed, a quieter operating process, and relatively lower power consumption.
Therefore, users with higher demands for the performance of computers and with sufficient budget are more likely to resort to SSD laptops.
eMMC VS SSD
You may read more information about HDD vs SDD or SD card vs SSD, but you only know a little about eMMC vs SSD. This article, however, mainly aims to talk about SSD vs eMMC to enhance your comprehension of them.
Although both eMMC and SSD operate on the NAND principles, a great number of distinctions lie between the two storage devices. In consideration of the dominant importance of storage devices for laptops, it is important to distinguish these devices and choose the most suitable one.
The most dominant difference is that eMMC is a type of flash storage based on the MMC standard, while SSD is a type of solid-state storage. Other detailed differences are listed as follows.
- Functions: eMMC is used as a temporary storage medium for a portable device while SSD is used as a permanent storage medium.
- Components: SSD is composed of powerful controller chips and fast NAND Flash memory, while eMMC is composed of similar components to an SD card or USB stick.
- Performance: The eMMC runs faster for small file storage and retrieval. However, the SSD delivers better performance in large file storage. The maximum data transfer rate of eMMC is about 400MB/s while the maximum transfer rate of SSD is much higher than that of eMMC.
- NAND Gate: Both eMMC and SSD operate on the NAND principles, which allow data to run faster, but eMMC typically has only one NAND gate, while SSD tends to have more NAND gates. As a result, SSD is faster in reading and writing compared to eMMC.
- Capacity: eMMC enjoys much less storage capacity than SSD. eMMC usually has storage space of 32 GB, 64 GB, or 128GB, while SSD boasts much more space like 128GB, 256 GB, 320 GB, 512 GB, 1 TB, 2 TB, 4 TB, or even 8 TB.
- Connation Method: eMMC is often directly soldered onto the motherboard while SSD drives are usually connected to the motherboard via the SATA or M.2 interface. In addition, the SSDs can be replaced easily.
- Quality: The memory chips within eMMC tend to be lower quality and degrade over time more rapidly than an SSD would. It’ll still take a matter of years depending on how often you’re performing file operations.
When Do You Need to Replace eMMC with SSD?
Despite the superior performance of SSDs, you may still hesitate to buy one. You may ask: Do I really need to spend so much money to buy an SSD for my laptop?
Imagine that you go a long way to download your favorite game, but you have to wait for more than several minutes to run it because your laptop uses other types of storage devices instead of SSD. At last, your laptop gets stuck several times and you lose this game as well. On the contrary, a laptop with SSD can deliver better read and write speed, helping you enjoy better performance.
Moreover, if the hard drive capacity is small on your laptop, you need to remove some applications or delete some files because your hard drive is nearly full. But a laptop with SSD enjoys larger storage space and allows you to save more loved and significant files.
Although the SSD is smaller than HDD, it is still larger than the eMMC and it is enough for you to install Windows 10, Office-related software, and even Photoshop. But you already know that new files and data will be generated at the time you run your laptop. It is necessary to know that once your SSD has been used more than 75%, its performance will also be affected.
So, if you want to enjoy better performance of your computer, you can choose to try eMMC upgrade. Thus, you can choose to upgrade eMMC with SSD. In the following part, we will show you how to replace eMMC with SSD without bringing any damage to your original data.
How to Replace eMMC with SSD
According to eMMC vs SSD above, it is obvious that SSD outweighs eMMC in many perspectives. If your work has high demands for the performance of computers or laptops, you may prefer SSD. Then, you may want to upgrade eMMC to SSD.
Can you replace eMMC with SSD? Before taking any steps, you should figure out this question.
If the eMMC is soldered directly to the motherboard, you cannot upgrade eMMC to SSD because desoldering eMMC is a very tough job.
However, if the eMMC is not soldered to the motherboard (like Steam Deck), you can upgrade eMMC to M.2 SSD. Note that the M.2 SSD form factor should be 2230.
How to perform the eMMC upgrade? The process should be as follows:
- Make sure both the eMMC and the SSD are connected to a PC (a USB to SATA/M.2 adapter may be needed).
- Clone eMMC to SSD.
- Install SSD to the eMMC slot.
In this part, I will show you how to clone eMMC to SSD. To do that, you can use MiniTool Partition Wizard. This software is multifunctional. It can clone hard drives, partition hard drives for better space usage, format FAT32 on storage devices over 32 GB, etc. It’s worth trying.
How to upgrade eMMC to M.2 SSD using MiniTool Partition Wizard? Here is the guide:
MiniTool Partition Wizard DemoClick to Download100%Clean & Safe
Step 1: Launch MiniTool Partition Wizard and right-click the eMMC drive. Then, select Copy from the context menu.
Step 2: On the pop-up window, select the SSD as the destination drive and then click Next. A warning window will pop up and you need to read it. Click Yes if you agree that the data on the destination drive will be destroyed.
Step 3: Review the changes. If all is OK, you can click Next.
Step 4: Read the NOTE and click Finish. Click the Apply button to execute the pending operation. Then, wait until the cloning process is completed.
Conclusion
In terms of SSD vs eMMC, eMMC enjoys a more affordable price and portable size, but its performance is much worse than SSD. On the other hand, SSD is more expensive but it boasts much better performance and longer lifespan. If the budget allows, it is recommended to get SSD for your device so as to enjoy better user’s experience.
If you encounter issues when using MiniTool Partition Wizard, contact us via [email protected]. We will get back to you as soon as possible.
eMMC vs SSD FAQ
SSD employs integrated circuit as the storage permanently store data. Compared with eMMC, SSD enjoys better performance and larger storage capacity. Hence, it the eMMC is not same as the SSD.
About The Author
Position: Columnist
Linda has been working as an editor at MiniTool for 5 years. She is always curious about computer knowledge and learns it crazily. Her articles are simple and easy to understand. Even people who do not understand computer can gain something. By the way, her special focuses are disk management, data recovery and PDF editing.