First of all, what the hell is a “Solid State Drive”? (SSD) It’s a storage device, similar in function to your hard disk drive, although not in structure. So like your hard disk drive, it stores programs and files to be used by the computer on demand.

OK so now for the structure. Your typical hard disk drive consists of several rigid platters on a spindle that are read and written by magnetic heads that hover close to the platters. Hence, “hard disk” drive. The solid state drive has no moving parts and it would be best compared to the USB flash drive (a.k.a. thumb drive) that has become so popular in recent years. The main difference is the solid state drive is bigger and has more capacity. So instead of moving parts, it has circuitry to hold the information. Thus, “solid state” drive.

Knowing the above, the pros are evident: No moving parts mean a much higher shock resistance, which is especially key when it comes to portable computers. Also because of the way the data is stored, the access time is much faster. This is more important than you might think if you’re looking for performance. A computer is only as fast as its slowest component. It would not be an overstatement to say that nowadays that slowest component is the storage device. So by speeding that up, one is improving the overall performance of the computer. And last but not least, the added bonus of no spinning noise from a solid state drive.

Now for the cons: as with all emerging technologies, price is higher than your traditional hard disk drive. Also lifespan is generally lower. And although this is being remedied, as of recent times solid state drives’ capacity is lower than what you can find in the hard disk drive market.

One important “don’t” for those who have them: do not run defragmenting software on them. Because of their structure, there is no advantage in doing so, and it only increases the wear level of the drive, thus shortening its lifespan. And remember that in later operating systems like Windows Vista and 7, there are automatic defragmenting tasks scheduled to run in the background, so make sure you disable those as well. (N.B.: There is some controversy on the particular subject of solid state drive defragmenting. The statement in the above paragraph is the commonly accepted one, but Diskeeper, a software company specializing in storage performance technology, claims improved benchmark write times figures in solid state drives that use Diskeeper’s proprietary defragmenting technology for solid state drives.)

See my recent article on the performance test results with a new solid state drive installed in my laptop.