Solid State Drives Shifting Into the Mainstream

Solid state drives (SSD) seem to be making their way off the shelves and into laptop computers of all shapes and sizes. Not too long ago, the only way consumers could use solid state drives was if they upgraded from a standard hard disk drive (HDD). But, that’s no longer the case.

The first ultraportable notebooks to offer solid state drives as an option were the Asus Eee PC and the Apple MacBook Air. However, several manufacturers are now designing their laptops and netbooks with solid state drives rather than hard disk drives. For instance, Dell’s 15-inch XPS M1530 notebook offers an “Ultra Performance” option, featuring twice the capacity and half the cost of drives offered up till now: 128GB for $450. Hewlett-Packard also gives consumers the choice of a large-capacity SSD, which is available in the 3-pound EliteBook 2530p.

While most SSDs have been aimed at the notebook market, they’re beginning to penetrate into the PC and server industry as well. Even in the gaming industry, solid state drives are becoming aggressively marketed as the best high-performance storage option. SSDs have shown they can surpass standard hard drives on almost every level—in particular, rpm benchmarks and input-output operations.

There are several advantages of solid state drives over standard hard drives, especially since the price of SSDs are continuing to decline. Some of the many improvements you’ll experience when upgrading to a SSD involve superior durability, higher performance, and greater reliability. Besides these performance gains, solid state drives also help out with weight and space constraints, which is a huge benefit to those who are constantly on-the-go. Also, thanks to practically heat-free emissions, SSDs tend to reduce cooling requirements and consume less battery power.

Within the next five or ten years, solid state drives will most likely become a common household item. In fact, we’ll probably start to see SSDs extend into many new market regions including applications for video cameras, railroad cars, mobile internet devices, and plenty of other areas.