For several decades now personal computers have used hard disk drives to store their programs and data, and for the most part they have served us extremely well. But the future of computer mass storage most assuredly rests elsewhere: in solid state hard drives.
Solid state drives aren’t really “disk drives” at all. Instead of a set of rotating platters and matching read/write heads, a solid state disk drive is little more than a massive bank of flash memory chips similar to those used in thumb drives and digital camera memory cards. Solid State drives have several advantages over traditional hard drives:
1 – The CPU can read and write to a solid state drive much faster – almost instantaneously in fact. The physical characteristics of hard drives ensure that there will always be a delay between the time the when the CPU makes a read or write request and when the operation is successfully completed. With a solid state drive there are no moving parts to set in motion which means the CPU can access the data stored on it in, well…a flash. Remember how long it takes Windows to boot up when you turn on your PC? It takes just a few seconds with a solid state hard drive!
2 – Solid state drives are lighter, and operate cooler than a hard drive ever could, which makes them extremely well suited for notebook computers.
3 – Since there are no moving parts and no heads to crash, solid state drives are more rugged than hard drives. Laptop computers are notorious for taking a beating, and dropping one often renders the hard drive unusable. Not so with a solid state drive.
But solid state drives also have a couple of disadvantages as well:
1 – While the storage capacity of hard drives now reach into the terabytes, current models of flash memory based solid state drives are limited to a relatively few gigabytes.
2 – The cost per megabyte of storage capacity in solid state drives is several times that of hard drives.
3 – The flash memory modules in solid state drives can only be written to a limited number of times, which of course means the drive’s lifespan is limited as well.
Conclusion: While the disadvantages discussed above are real, the advantages are so great that a solid state disk drive will soon be considered a must-have, at least in notebook computers. As with everything electronic, their capacities and lifetimes will increase over time as newer technologies are developed and implemented. And as always, we can expect the prices of solid state drives to drop considerably once they become popular and economies of scale in manufacturing come into play.