Which advantage does a spinning media drive have over an SSD drive?

Spinning hard drives record data by magnetizing regions on a platter - a physical state that does not require power to maintain and can persist for decades without degradation. SSDs rely on floating-gate or charge-trap NAND flash cells that hold electrons to represent data, and those electrons gradually leak away when the drive is unpowered, a phenomenon documented in JEDEC standard JESD218 which defines SSD data retention limits at various temperatures. This charge leakage makes HDDs the superior choice for long-term unpowered archival storage.

SSDs generate less heat and require less cooling than HDDs because they have no spinning platters or actuator arms, giving SSDs the advantage in cooling requirements.

High-end SSDs generally match or significantly exceed HDDs in sequential write throughput, so HDDs do not have an advantage in sequential write rates.

SSDs have no mechanical components to spin up and deliver near-instantaneous access, while HDDs must wait for platters to reach operating speed, giving SSDs a major advantage in startup time.