Digital Home Thoughts: Feel the Need for Speedy SSDs

"This is the second part of our 2010 spring SSD roundup. In part one, we compared offerings from Crucial, Intel, OCZ, Solidata, and Toshiba. Now it’s time to add some newcomers to our revamped testing suite. With Windows 7 and a SATA 6Gb/s add-in card from Highpoint (utilizing a Marvell controller), we’re ready for drives able to deliver 300 MB/s and more of throughput."

SSDs are not a standard item for most computers but they are becoming a lot more common. With their rising popularity, more companies are entering the market, and test results are showing up with some interesting figures. Overall, SSDs are considerably faster than what can be accomplished with the age old traditional hard drive, some even exceeding 6Gb/s! However, there is a wide variance in performance between each drive, and there are a lot of other considerations such as power draw and extended use. The choice between them is not as easy as one could make with hard drives. Still, SDDs, short of the really, really tiny ones, are priced for enthusiasts, not regular joes. I would wait another generation, maybe two before taking the plunge.