As we go over the long list of specs on a new computer we usually gloss over our storage options and focus more on processing power and memory, and for good reason as our storage options haven’t really changed much over the years.
Now, a new option has arrived on scene, Solid State Drives (SSDs). Solid State Drives are a whole new beast and they have a lot to offer. SSDs are comprised of multiple flash memory chips that are all connected together.
Being comprised only of chips means that Solid State Drives contain no moving parts and unlike the Hard Drives we are used to using, are completely silent when in operation. We can finally say goodbye to that grinding sound we hear everytime our drives spin up, but to their credit they have become much quieter over the years.
What makes this technology so amazing is its speed. SSDs read and write data at such blazing speeds that on some systems, can make Windows load faster than the animation that plays during boot up. Load times in games are reduced drastically and content loads much faster though out the whole system. It really shows how much of a bottleneck our old Hard Drives were.
However, it took me a while to build up the courage to buy one and put all my data on one these new drives. When SSDs first started to pop up in stores there were many problems with the firmware installed on these drives, some of which could result in a complete failure of the drive itself. Another issue was price, it was hard to justify the cost per GB. SSDs that have been on the market for a while now and a lot of manufacturers seem to have worked out alot of the bugs that plagued early SSDs. SSDs are becoming much more popular, in fact SSDs are now being installed in the new Macbook Pro (retina), and performance gains are obvious
Prices are still not nearly as cheap as the old hard drives but there are many deals going on right now as companies and retailers are trying to push the world towards this new storage option. Still think its a bit to pricey ? No need to worry, as consumers buy more of these drives I expect to see prices drop again.
I did remain skeptical for a long time about how much performance gain I would really see until I just jumped in and bought one of these drives. If your curious as to how my experience was, let me just say that once you buy one of these you will probably never go back.