Are solid-state drives worth the money?

[Mr Handlebars]

I found this article on one of the many basic IT column that I get in my mailbox. I was wondering anyone else's take on this subject and if anyone out there already has or had an SSD? Though I'm not endorsing the site that I got this from, since I am reprinting their article, I need to give credit where credit is due.

Are solid-state drives worth the money?


2/16/2009


Q. The hard drive in my laptop is getting old. So, I want to replace it before it crashes. When I was shopping for a new one, I saw solid-state drives. I was flabbergasted by the prices for such small drives! Are solid-state drives really so great? I honestly can't see spending that much on a drive. Are the prices going to come down?

A. Solid-state drives use flash memory, just like thumb drives and memory cards. Solid-state drives are the future of computer storage. You'll find them in hot computers like the MacBook Air and Lenovo's X300. They're also available in low-cost laptops, like the Asus Eee PC.

If you're astute, you'll notice that these computers all have one thing in common: They're ultraportable laptops.

That should give you a big hint about some of the benefits of solid-state drives (SSDs). First, they're smaller and lighter than hard drives. SSDs also use significantly less power and run cooler than hard drives.

Manufacturers can produce laptops that are not only small and light but that have a long battery life. This will appeal to business travelers, students and anyone else who totes a laptop regularly.

But, the real draw is the fact that SSDs have no moving parts. Because there are no moving parts, SSDs are much more rugged than hard drives.

Shakes and spills can cause a hard drive to die. But SSDs don't have this problem. Even barring accidents, SSDs have a much longer lifespan than hard drives. SSDs will also perform in more extreme temperatures than hard drives.

Additionally, SSDs will provide faster boot times than hard drives. SSDs have faster read times than hard drives. They also have faster write times on large files.

Despite the advantages of SSDs, some are concerned about their reliability. Flash memory has a limited number of write cycles. That's right! Your thumb drives and memory cards can wear out.

This limit could theoretically be approached quickly when flash memory is used to boot an operating system.

But, manufacturers say this isn't a problem. They use wear-leveling algorithms so the computer doesn't write to the same area repeatedly.

It's still relatively rare to see SSDs for sale as replacement drives. But this will change.

As production increases, prices will drop. Besides, flash prices have fallen rapidly over the years. Before too long, it should be the same if not cheaper than hard drive storage.

Manufacturers are also adopting multi-level cell (MLC) technology. Flash memory is composed of many cells. In single-level cell technology, each cell could only hold one bit. With MLC, each cell can hold two bits.

MLC technology reduces the price per gigabyte of flash memory. Of course, it also increases the storage capacity of flash memory.

SSDs have many benefits. But I don't think home users should adopt them yet. The price is still high. Also, the storage capacity is too small. Unlike business users, home users may have many large multimedia files. SSDs are not large enough to store all this data.