I heard a few years ago that at some point the computer hard drive, as we know it, was going to go the way of the dinosaur. While that hasn't quite happened yet, the Solid State drive is gaining in popularity as the technology is being more readily employed by computer manufacturers.
Question is, right now anyway, are we ready for that? Fact is, Solid State memory has been used in computers for years. It's what's know as static memory and most computers make use of it for RAM or random access memory. Solid State memory has no moving parts and there fore has been perfect for use as the systems random memory. Meanwhile, the traditional hard drive, consists of several rotating disks with a read and write head mounted on an arm that etches data on to each plate. This has been the industry standard for larger amounts of memory storage.
What's been keeping Solid State or SSD from being fully implemented has been the cost. The prices of such memory have been dropping steadily. Still, SSD drives can cost as much as $400 t0 $500 more that of a standard hard drive. But, that hasn't stopped Dell, Fujitsu, and Toshiba from placing the technology into their laptops.
Solid State Drive are faster than Hard Disk Drives because there are no moving parts. No moving parts means that there are no disks or platters that need to spin up and there are no read or write heads or arms to get stuck. The capacity of an SSD has been increasing slowly. It's possible to get a 1 terabyte SSD while the capacity of a Hard Disk Drive can go up into the multiple terabyte range.
While this is not exciting stuff, it is something to think about when considering your next computer purchase. There's no doubt that with the rapid pace in the growth of computer technology, it may not be long before all computers will come with either both a hard drive and a solid state drive, or just a Solid State Drive alone.
With today's need for speed, it may just be what we've all been waiting for.
No comments:
Post a Comment