| Q. What's the advantage of having an SSD in a | | | | SSDs, which is why laptops with 320Gb hard drives |
| laptop, rather than a hard disk? SSDs seem to have | | | | and 32Gb SSDs cost about the same at the moment. |
| much smaller capacities than hard drives, but cost so | | | | What you have to bear in mind is that, unlike a hard |
| much more - is it some kind of con? | | | | drive, an SSD has no moving parts. |
| A. Solid-state drives (SSDs) are a relatively recent | | | | No matter how much you shake an SSD laptop, even |
| innovation that use memory chips for data storage. | | | | when it's reading or writing to the drive, your data |
| Like any new technology, SSDs are still developing at | | | | will never be at risk - the same cannot be said for a |
| a breakneck speed and they are expensive. | | | | laptop with a hard drive. SSDs also consume less |
| Capacities are increasing all the time, and costs are | | | | power and can offer faster data transfer rates, |
| coming down as SSDs become more popular - but | | | | making them ideal for use in netbooks like the Eee |
| laptop manufacturers tend to stick with lower | | | | PC. |
| capacity drives in order to keep the prices down. | | | | So it's up to you. Solid State Drives aren't for |
| Hard drives, however, use a long-established storage | | | | everyone, but as the cost comes down, they will |
| technology: spinning magnetic platters and moving | | | | definitely gain a much bigger presence when you're |
| read/write heads. | | | | shopping for a new computer. |
| The cost per megabyte is considerably lower than | | | | |