Top Ten Reasons to Buy a Solid State Drive

Solid state drives are going to be a big hit in 2011, and they're so impressive, you may never want to use a hard drive to store data again. Here's a look at ten reasons to switch to solid state drives as soon as possible.

1. Solid state drives are fast . Speeds of up to 3.0Gb/s are typical for SATA SSD drives, as they don't need to send heads zipping around on platters just to find some data. Speed is one of the biggest advantages of SSD technology, especially from a laptop user's point of view.

2. Solid state drives are quiet . No moving parts means no spinning or clicking-plus, they don't tend to run as hot as hard drives and use less battery life. That means less fan noise.

3. They're past the "early adopter" phase. The first generation of SSD had its problems, but current drives from companies like Intel seem to be extremely dependable. Basically, they've got the kinks worked out.

4. They're not that expensive . An Intel X25M 120GB will set you back about $230. Yeah, you can get more data on a hard drive, but would you really need to? The price of SSD will continue to drop through 2011 and beyond.

5. Major data companies make them. The aforementioned Intel drive is the tip of the iceberg. Other major data companies are jumping on board with solid state drives, so there's a strong indication that they're gearing up to replace the hard drive entirely as soon as possible.

6. They come with some new computers. Toshiba and other laptop providers offer laptops that ship with SSD, so if you're in the market for a computer that you can take in the bathroom (I'm not judging), you might as well go with a solid state drive to keep your data intact when you inevitably drop it.

7. They're ideal operating system drives. The fast speed of solid state drives makes them a great choice as your main operating system drive. You'll load and run programs much faster, even if you decide to install a hard drive as a secondary drive.

8. They're ecologically and battery friendly. Less moving parts means less draw on your battery, which means a longer battery life and less wasted electricity.

9. SSD is more dependable than hard drive technology. Once again, no moving parts, so there's nothing to break down and crash. Solid state drives can break, of course. No technology's perfect. However, they seem to be much more dependable in the long run than even the best hard drives on the market.

10. Solid state drives work well in RAIDs . This is sort of a special one, but many companies are using solid state drives in RAIDs for both their dependability and their incredible speed. They gain a lot more speed when used in a RAID setting, and servers have been built with blazing fast data capabilities that would be absolutely impossible with standard hard drives.

Are you excited about solid state drives? Will you buy one? Post your thoughts in the comments section below.