I feel dumb...computer related...

[Jer]

SSDs are not all they are cracked up to be when it comes to longevity, capacity, cost, consistent operation . . .

SSDs will be cool someday and have some good uses today, but they are not appropriate for all circumstances.

Windows 7 works better than Vista. It uses less resources, UAE and other protections are better implemented, security is more thought out, etc.

Based on the blanket statements you've said re: SSD I'm inclined to think you haven't done any testing of SSD yourself and are just parroting something you heard at Best Bet from one of their 'experts' so I'm going to disregard your statements. Several of your 'cons' for SSD are actually areas where they surpass standard spinning platter technology so it makes it difficult to have conversations with someone who is spouting false information.

[Skyyr]

Based on the blanket statements you've said re: SSD I'm inclined to think you haven't done any testing of SSD yourself and are just parroting something you heard at Best Bet from one of their 'experts' so I'm going to disregard your statements. Several of your 'cons' for SSD are actually areas where they surpass standard spinning platter technology so it makes it difficult to have conversations with someone who is spouting false information.

Longevity, cost, and capacity are drawbacks of SSD. The only con Preferred User listed that isn't entirely correct is 'consistent operation,' as that's more of a hardware-to-hardware compatibility issue than something innate to SSD.

[chadbag]

Longevity, cost, and capacity are drawbacks of SSD. The only con Preferred User listed that isn't entirely correct is 'consistent operation,' as that's more of a hardware-to-hardware compatibility issue than something innate to SSD.

Not really. Hard disks today seem to fail at a rate equal to or higher than SSDs. Go on Newegg.com and read reviews of hard drives. From all manufacturers. The projected longevity of most SSDs today is longer than the device they are in in most cases.

Cost of SSD is reasonable. It cannot be directly compared to standard HD but I bought a few SSD last November for $100 plus or minus a little bit. Prices have come down a little since and I just got a personalized NewEgg coupon for 20% off one SSD of my choice in the next 48 hours.

[Skyyr]

Not really. Hard disks today seem to fail at a rate equal to or higher than SSDs.

I wasn't referring to straight out failures; I was referring to the fact that SSD's have a finite number of read/write cycles, significantly lower than platters. Yes, even platter drives have a finite number of cycles, but it's dependent upon usage, temperature, partitioning, etc. The SSD drives simply have a physical limit of the read/write cycles, then they start to fail.

They're also more susceptible to data corruption due to the way they store data.

You're right, platter disks / traditional harddrives are mechanical in function and therefore are more prone to physical failures, but that's why RAID exists. A redundant RAID array of platter drives will have a longer lifespan in read/write cycles than a similar array of SSD drives.

SSD drives are too new to replace traditional HDDs, but they are the future. I'm not knocking them, I just wish they were better and more cost effective. Once they get to the 500GB size range and sub $150 cost, I'll be picking one up.

[Preferred User]

Based on the blanket statements you've said re: SSD I'm inclined to think you haven't done any testing of SSD yourself and are just parroting something you heard at Best Bet from one of their 'experts' so I'm going to disregard your statements. Several of your 'cons' for SSD are actually areas where they surpass standard spinning platter technology so it makes it difficult to have conversations with someone who is spouting false information.

Think what you want. I have personally tested at least 20 different brand / versions of SSDs (as I am sure you have since you seem to be so knowledgeable).

I have experimented with SSDs in RAID configurations to try and speed access to Oracle databases, I have tried various drives in single configurations to test boot, read-write operations, and failure rates.

Many of the early OCZ and Kingston drives had high failure rates because of some "manufacturing inconsistencies". I have a stack of them, but they are really too light to be paper weights.

Also there are some issues we have seen with the controllers on SSD drives not working in all systems. Mac Pros seem to be finicky. We have had issues with SSD drives with Adaptec RAID controllers.

And if you try to clone SSD drives on a Logicube OmniClone for a mass deployment it is certainly a hit or miss if they will all work. Try to clone from one SSD to another? Forget about it.

How many drives have you personally tested? And reading Amazon reviews does not count.

Additionally there are a number of issues with data recovery if an SSD drive has a failure of any kind. Due to the fact that each drive manufacturer implements wear-leveling using different algorithms it is nearly impossible to recover deleted/lost data.

Also as Skyyr pointed out in his post SSDs have a finite number of RW cycles. This in essence means your drive is getting smaller and smaller with each use. Of course if all you do is surf the Internet and post on M4C your drive will last a long time. However in my job we actually use our computers and write to disks frequently with large volumes of data.

To continue in the advantage/disadvantage vein, when you look at the cost per MB or GB it is very hard to justify an SSD drive except in specific circumstances.

Let's say you are a performance junkie. A 240GB OCZ RevoDrive is listed at $624 on Newegg. A 300 GB WD VelociRaptor is $149. A dollar here and a dollar there and pretty soon you are talking real money. Does the OCZ have nearly 5 times the value of the WD? Perhaps. Depends on your particular situation.

Maybe we should look at a more pedestrian example. Maybe the 240GB OCZ Agility is a better bargain at $489. However when we compare that to the 750GB Seagate Momentus which is a hybrid drive with a very large cache and 3GB/Sec SATA interface at $100 there is still a huge difference.

If you are a road warrior and want an SSD to increase battery life of your portable, an SSD may fit the bill. SSDs consume much less power and are obviously soundless since there are no moving parts.

However if you actually need a drive with capacity an SSD is a rather pricey option.

I can take this to any level you want. But this is a firearms site so no need. Guns are way more fun, computers are just work.

[chadbag]

I personally don't think we will see SSD devices replace hard drive with physical platters any time soon. Even as the SSD capacity grows, so does hard drive capacity. And the need for storage grows with it. We will be with hard drives for a long long time. SSDs will fit in for specific uses like in portables, boot drives, caches, etc.

I personally have one in my MacBook as I did not need the storage I had in there (320gb) and I replaced it with a 64GB SSD and took the 320gb drive out for one half of a mirrored boot drive for an office file server based on Nexenta). I would love to have a MacBook Air as my road warrior machine for those rare times I travel (when I go somewhere it tends to be more than a day or two and I need a computer with me -- for example we are going to Japan for 3 weeks this September). The Nexenta file server has another one for a read cache and another Nexenta server I have for my hosting customers has some SSDs for read and write caches of the file system.

I still remember my first 1GB hard drive, which I thought was huge and was very expensive. It was when I worked at WordPerfect and i had it in 1993. I did not buy one for myself until around 1996 or so when prices had come down. Now we have multi TB hard drives and we fill them up with media and stuff quickly. That need will not go down and will not be replaced by SSDs any time at all soon.

It is a complimentary technology where certain levels of performance are needed and will remain that way for quite a while...