Quote:
Originally Posted by Blackraven  Interesting.
However, in the case of SSD, aside from the trade-off of having lower capacity, isn't it that SSD drives are *supposed* to better in all aspects compared to HDDs (in terms of performance)??? Yet then again, I've read one time in Dailytech and Annandtech that it does have a few issues regarding the limit of read/write cycles (like what flash memory is experiencing)............or was it just my imagination?
Anyways, please care enlighten me (or us for those who are interested).  |
Yes and no. You know how Hard Disks come with different Interface transfer rates, RPMs, and (God I'm old) Seek Times? These attributes translate somewhat well over to the Class of an SD card, or the speed of the flash in an ATA Flash disk (Like a Compact Flash card or a SSD in a computer)
The trick is, Lots of SSDs have great read times, and poor write times. When I was still using my iPod Mini, I had a 16gb CF card in there instead of the 6gb Microdrive. Theres great things in that for battery life and for read times, as those were better/faster. However, the write times were horrible. It took nearly 16 hours to load the iPod initially with 12.5GB of music. Giving us a write speed of something close to Kilobytes per second. Remember, Windows XP is stupid and designed for computers 10 years old, It needs to write to the hard disk CONSTANTLY.
Now, there are such things as high performance SSDs, Like Intel's X25 series. These are designed to read and write MUCH faster than your average flash chip. They also
start at 314 USD for a 80gb model. These disks are great for Gaming, high performance computing (read, real computers. Not the shit you have on your desk), computing in dangerous environments, and Possibly Space Flight (I haven't checked the environmental specifications of them) On the other end of the scale, much less speedy and much less reliable drives are made out of standard grade flash all the time. These are the kinds of disks that end up soldered to the motherboard of your average netbook. NOT Intel's latest screamer of a drive. Seeing as Intel's drives START at what your average Netbook COSTS in the first place, I'm seeing an obvious selection on the side of the manufacturer. Can you blame them?
And now you know what you need to know about Solid State Disks.