Not only do transfer speeds outstrip platter-based disk systems, the power needs of SSDs are considerably lower. For example, Samsung's 32-GB notebook, with its 2.5-inch SSD, consumes 95 percent less power than comparable disk-based drives, with three times the average disk-access speed on a lowly UATA-33 bus. Another advantage SSDs have over their magnetic kin is noise reduction—we've worked with new SATA-3 platter-based drives that sound like boxes of rocks.
Remember When
So what's the downside? Currently, the per-gigabyte cost of SSD storage for, as an example, a 2.5-inch notebook drive is $10.95, based on a 2.5-inch SATA SSD offering from SanDisk. That sounds expensive. Yet, compare that to just a year ago, when a 32-GB 2.5-inch SATA SSD from Advanced Media cost a whopping $31.25 per gigabyte. This rapid drop in price means that SSDs may become a more viable alternative for end users and data centers alike.
Still, the price for rotating media continues to fall as well. In 2006, the price-per-gigabyte of a platter-based drive of a similar interface to the Advanced Media SSD was roughly $0.30 per gigabyte. Clearly, SSD has quite a ways to go before it's practical to dump magnetic media altogether.
A station on the road toward SSDs is the hybrid drive. These devices bridge the gap between platter drives and SSDs by using not only rotating media but also a bank of RAM (128 MB to 512 MB, in most cases) to cache frequently accessed data. This caching means that systems using these hybrid drives can enjoy the same "instant-on" capabilities (or in the case of enterprise, instant data access) of SSD-based systems without the price overhead. At about $1.02 per gigabyte, hybrid drives come in at attractive price, comparatively, and offer some of the advantages of SSDs.
Then there's the millions of dollars spent every year on data center heat management. Platter-based drive motors produce significant heat that must be dissipated. While SSDs do get warm, they run much cooler than platter-based drives.
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