Linda posted on November 30, 2009 13:07
Solid state drives (SSD) have been on the market for quite some time, but only recently have I started to talk to people who actually have one - and I was soooo jealous! I have also started seeing them listed as options when configuring notebooks online, on our page as well as other brands.
Recently, we acquired one as part of the server we built at a recent Intel Technical Training event. Solid state drives are ideal for servers that need to provide information quickly and reliably. This server was configured with an SSD for the operating system and conventional drives for the data. While I am sure that makes for one fast server, we decided not to use the drive in that configuration and removed it from the server.
It was only a short step from there to copying the information from my notebook hard drive to the SSD and powering my notebook back up. It did not take near as long to get to the login screen as it did with my hard drive - which is a 7200rpm model and gets regularly maintained by defragmenting and removing temporary files, so not a bad hard drive at all.
I'm prefacing these comments with the qualification that I didn't time boot up before and after for accurate comparisons. No one does that in the real world anyway and what really matters is perception.
My initial reaction when I logged in was that it wasn't that much faster. Of course, I was logging into our company network and I have a rather large profile, so logging in requires sending a large amount of information through the network. Having an SSD in your notebook will not speed that operation up. Neither will it make a website on a bogged down server or loading over a slow connection come up more quickly.
But - it will definitely make the programs that load from your machine load more quickly. I am noticing that more working at home than I did in the office. Starting up my machine is definitely faster than before and I immediately noticed that the fan does not run as often. Since I use it most evenings on my lap, the fact that it runs cooler is nice. That should result in the ability to run longer on battery - no drive to spin and less fan time means less energy, but I don't really have a handle on that yet.
After just a few days using this drive, I would not want to go back to my conventional hard drive.
There is a downside though - these drives are still significantly more expensive than traditional drives. You are not likely to put one in a machine that is only going to be used for internet and email that you want to keep as inexpensive as possible. These drives are going to be purchased by those who use their notebooks as desktops and want them to be as responsive as possible.
Of course, there is also the benefit of a drive that is less likely to fail. Having crashed one hard drive because I left my notebook in a precarious position that resulted in a sudden meeting with a floor, that seems like a benefit to me. The same event with an SSD would still make me feel foolish and may well damage the housing, but would not result in a notebook that won't work at all.
Over time, I expect that these drives will continue to increase in capacity (it is still somewhat limited) and decrease in price. I wouldn't be a bit surprised to find that they are soon the option of choice in high end notebooks and perhaps some mid-level notebooks as well.