Solid State Hard Drives
I have always been sort of a computer geek. I have been toying with computers since I was in my early teens. So you have to be only slightly surprised when I tell you I'm excited about some new computer technology. We always seem to hear about the latest and greatest processor speed and bigger memory, but the one thing that hasn't really changed a whole lot, till now, is the hard drive. They may have got a lot bigger in capacity, but not speed. Well as it turns out, the same technology we use in digital cameras (you know, the little sd cards – and even micro sd cards). Well those SD cards are like little hard drives with no moving parts, which is nothing like the computer hard drive which ranges anywhere from 5400rpm to 10,000rpm (maybe higher?).
So, this new technology in hard drives I want to talk to you about, is called Solid State Hard Drives. Solid State meaning it has absolutely no moving parts at all making it more durable than the standard hard drive. This means that hard drive failures are far fewer, and since the computer doesn't have to seek out your files (literally), by spinning up the hard drive, the SSD can retrieve any number of files almost instantly. Startup times are much quicker to. Just think how nice it would be shave a few minutes off of that boot up time. As Commander Data from Star Trek The Next Generation would say, "That is nearly an eternity."
Here is a comparison of what the two hard drives look like:
So the next computer you purchase might just have this solid state hard drive in it. Right now the price is a little high to be standard, but like all memory products I'm sure the price will go down over time and will become affordable and maybe even the new standard.
For comparison a 250gb traditional hard drive replacement costs about $80
and
A solid state hardrive 250gb cost nearly $425 (almost 5 times more)
Maybe in a couple years we can all be computing at even greater speed than we are now. Maybe we will have computers that can simulate the human brain so maybe we won't have to use ours (a lot of us are already not using ours…. seriously)? LOL
December 22 2011 11:03 pm | Computer Stuff
