We have known USB thumb drive and Hard Disk Drive (HDD) as low cost devices for storage.  We have heard about an upcoming technology called Solid State Disk (SSD) with the potential of replacing USB and HDD as the de facto consumer storage standard.  What is SSD?

SSD is a managed form of USB thumb drive in simple terms. They use the same type of memory based on IC (integrated circuits) using voltage level to indicate 1 or 0.  HDD is electro-magnetic and the presence or absence of magnetism denotes 1 or 0.  

The benefits of SSD are many.  SSD does not have a motor as in HDD and as such it is smaller in size, consumes less electricity and is quieter to operate.  SSD does not have the gramophone needle arrangement as HDD and as such it has no crash.  SSD is all electronics and as such SSD is faster than HDD on 2 counts- shorter latency and higher throughput.

SSD is expensive although the unit price is dropping every year.  On a per GB basis, SSD is 10 to 100 times more expensive than HDD.  SSD storage is smaller than HDD. SSD come in 32, 64, 128, 256 and 512GB. HDD has reached 2TB by September 2009.  The biggest problem is however the lack of reliability and usable life- SSD has a higher failure rate and shorter lifespan than HDD at the moment.  These are the key challenges being resolved by SSD vendors.  Feel free to email This e-mail address is being protected from spam bots, you need JavaScript enabled to view it for more info.