Monday, March 17, 2008

Flash-based hard drives: Like Ryan Leaf.


Jeesh. Flash-based hard drives a.k.a., SSD (solid state drives), are like the Ryan Leaf of computer tech. Flash-based drives showed so much promise, yet has delivered nothing so far for notebook computing. They are expensive (~$900 for an SSD upgrade on a notebook computer) and unreliable.

In theory, SSD's have many advantages over conventional hard drives:
- energy efficiency (due to lack of moving parts)
- silent operation
- compact size
- fast

So far, the potential benefits have yet to be realized. Performance gains have been minimal and in some cases are actually WORSE than standard hard drives. Compact size has been a non-factor so far since they're usually used inside of standard notebook casings. Energy efficiency gains have also been minimal.

Now, adding insult to injury, a recent analysis shows that "a large computer manufacturer" is getting around 20 percent to 30 percent of the flash-based notebooks it is shipping sent back because of failure rates and performance that simply isn't meeting customer expectations.

About 10% of the SSD notebooks are defective (compared with only 1% of standard hard drive-based notebooks). Another 10% or so are reporting performance issues with basic functions such as video streaming.

Of course we're just in the beginning of phasing in SSD drives, but here's to hoping that you don't make the mistake of buying an SSD-based computer. Here's also to hoping that I'll be writing about SSD's being like Eli Manning in the near-future...

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