Flash-based solid-state drives (SSDs) continue to increase in storage capacity while dropping in price, but adoption rates have still been slow, and will be slow for a while longer.
Some storage manufacturers have ramped up SSD production, while Western Digital (WD) announced it will focus on HDDs but keep its eye on SSDs. Seagate also has pushed its SSD plans back until 2009, but has shown strong dedication to the developing technology.
Flash giant SanDisk also expects big things from SSDs in the future, as the company recently announced its own SSD technology capable of shaping the future of SSDs.
Samsung has announced it has started mass production of 256GB SSDs, becoming the first manufacturer to dabble with SSD capacity that high. Samsung already offers 64GB and 128GB SSDs in notebooks.
SSDs are carving out a niche market in netbooks, where manufacturers are looking for smaller, quieter and more power efficient form factors. The Acer Aspire One offers an 8GB SSD with its netbook, while other Acer Aspire One models have 120GB HDDs. It's possible to find other netbooks with SSD storage capacities of 16GB, while there are similar notebooks with SSD storage instead of HDDs.
I expect SSDs to begin a transition where the technology will spread outside of netbooks and the enterprise, and will eventually make its way to full-size notebooks and desktop PCs. I don't expect that transition to happen in 2009, with most analysts agreeing that it won't be until 2010 or later until we see SSDs in more PCs.
Even with 1TB HDDs available for $200 or less, it seems that all roads still lead towards SSDs. While HDD spindle speeds vary from 4200 to 7200RPM in most desktop PCs, the moving parts inside HDDs make them much more likely to fail.
SSDs also offer faster operating speeds, higher reliability, and lower power consumption when compared to HDDs.
Are you willing to pay a higher price for SSDs to get faster seek times and higher transfer rates? Or are you going to wait until prices drop further before purchasing an SSD drive for your notebook or PC?
In the immediate future, no one should expect SSDs to suddenly take over the consumer market in anything besides netbooks. Manufacturers are going to focus on enterprise storage, where companies are expected to use a combination of both HDDs and SSDs as they look to increase storage reliability.
