Slashdot Mirror
SSD Price Drops Signaling End of Spinning Media?
gjt writes "When Intel and OCZ recently announced new 'affordable' Solid State Disk drives — offering a meager 32-40GB — we initially yawned. But, then we took a closer look at the press releases and the in-progress research and development in SSD technology and opened our eyes. While the new drives aren't affordable on a cost per gigabyte basis for everyone, it does set a precedent — and most importantly a barometer price of $100. And it really does start the death clock for hard drive technology."
In 5 years, people will still be maintaining COBOL systems.
Price is only the first hurdle for SSDs. There's also the issue of reliability, and reports from the field suggest that SSD reliability is highly variable, and in no case as good over the long term as hard drives. That will probably change in time, but they're not there yet.
Proud member of the Weirdo-American community.
Helicopters signal the end of automobiles, just as soon as their poor $$/mile traveled ratio reaches parity, but you can buy helicopters from Air Hog right now!
Solar panels signal the end of nuclear power AND the oil industry, just as soon as their poor $$/watt ratio reaches parity! But you can get a solar powered calculator RIGHT NOW!
Can I be a tech pundit yet?
Pity the lesson of Y2K went unheeded - where every COBOL programmer was paid whatever they asked to fix their code, but after should have all been taken out to a field and shot in the head.
Why shoot the programmers? Why not shoot the managers too ignorant to modernize their code base?
To get back on topic, I see spinning drives as the new backup or large file storage medium. You boot off your SSD and keep most of your files there, but anything you want a backup copy of or anything large enough to not need fast access, like movies, pictures, and music get stored on the HDD.
There is no "I disagree" mod for a reason. Flamebait, Troll, and Overrated are not substitutes.