Most people who are beyond their mid-teen years remember when computers were sold with floppy drive readers. Almost every computer sold had such a reader. And there were different size floppies. Now, it is rare to see retail outlets carry any floppies. Those days are fading into computing history.

The machine that you are using to view this page likely has a hard drive. Most (but not all) computers and notebooks still use a hard drive. It is difficult to think of not having a hard drive but those days may not be far off. We may date ourselves when the solid state generation asks us ‘older folks’ what it was like to use hard drives that spun and made noise.

The advantages of the solid state drive are many: more efficiency, more durability, more secure from damage, more speed, less energy consumption and so forth:

link: Solid-state drives

The drawback at the moment is that the solid state drives are expensive. That will change as this becomes the storage medium of choice. Many will remember when an 80 GB hard drive was cutting edge and priced over a hundred dollars. That 80 GB hard drive now sells for under fifty dollars. The solid state drives may follow a similar trajectory. And, someday soon, you might be discussing with fondness the old days when you had a noisy, slow machine with a hard drive - with platters.

Catherine Forsythe
Director of Operations
FlyingHamster:  http://flyinghamster.com/

[tag]computers, laptops, hard drives, solid state drives, history, the next wave, floppies[/tag]