More on SSD

I thought I could elaborate a little more on the benefits of SSDs (I am a big fan, can you tell?). There are quite a few more benefits than I brought to light in a previous post, so let's go:

1) Power consumption. When you're on the go, battery life is critical. The last thing you want to see when in the middle of a project is a flashing "battery low" symbol. There are no moving parts to a solid state drive, so that electricity is conserved and while SSDs are not going to double your battery life, they do have the ability to add about 10% to 15%. This equates to about a half hour increase, depending on usage.

2) Failures. There is a very general rule that the more moving parts an object has, the higher the chance of failure will be. With a total count of moving parts equal to zero, SSDs are less prone to failure due to mechanical problems when compared to standard hard drives. As an added benefit to the lack of moving parts, SSDs can withstand an amazingly high accelerations in accidental falls.

3) Noise. Again, because there are no moving parts, there is nothing that has the ability to vibrate. Without vibration, there can be no sound (thank you, Physics 101). A lot of noise that a desktop generates is from the head of the hard drive moving back and forth to read/write data. With a SSD in place of the traditional hard drive, the only noise that a desktop computer would propagate would be the noise from its fans that keep the inside of the case cool.

I cannot stress how much I believe in the underlying technology in solid state media. If it were up to me, I would go out and buy a new "disk" for my desktop right now. The problem is that SSDs cost about $8/GB as compared to $0.25/GB for mechanical hard drives. Being a college student also doesn't help, but hey, maybe someday.