Solid State Drives: The end of the hard drive?

While the experts at Crucial aren't ready to declare the computer hard drive obsolete, they can say with confidence that the SSD is a viable storage option that more and more users are turning to.

There are many advantages to Solid State Drive technology. Meanwhile, traditional hard drives have their drawbacks. Because they record data on magnetically encoded platters spinning thousands of revolutions per minute, they wear out. They lack durability. They are loud.

But a solid-state drive uses non-volatile flash memory with no moving parts, which makes it shock resistant. What's more, SSDs lessen the risk data loss, they perform faster and quieter, and they are more energy efficient.

Historically, large capacity flash-based drives had been used primarily in industries that demanded high performance, reliable storage under demanding conditions — such as military, aerospace and telecom. But these drives were very expensive. Not any more. Today, flash-memory costs are dropping, making solid-state drives economically and commercially viable to end users like you.

While most experts agree that price will remain the Solid State Drive's biggest downside, prices have gone down since they were first introduced to mobile consumer users. At one time, small capacity USB flash drives sold for about $50, and now you can get a 2GB drive for less than ten bucks. (And they've virtually replaced the floppy drive as a result. ) As the price for SSD continue to fall, one has to wonder what the long-term future holds for hard drives, given the many advantages the SSD has over traditional mechanical hard drives.

Get more information on Crucial SSDs.