Tales of the solid-state laptop drive (both good and bad) have been making the rounds for some time now. Now Dell has introduced large SSD drives as a notebook option and we may have a chance to see what they’re really all about.

Several manufacturers have been offering 64 and 128 GB solid state drives for some time. Those drives are just too small for most modern laptops. Now Dell is ready to start shipping laptops equipped with the new Samsung 256 GB solid state drive on its XPS M1330 and M1730 laptop lines, according to a CNET news story. From the accompanying graphic, it would appear that the new SSD drive is more expensive than any others offered, up to a 500 GB SATA drive.

For those wondering what we’re talking about, a solid-state drive (SSD) is a data storage device that uses solid-state memory to store persistent data. A SSD emulates a hard disk drive interface, thus easily replacing it in most applications. They have been generally available in smaller sizes for two to three years, and have carried a significant price premium over and above a similarly sized standard mechanical hard disk drive.

SSD drives are much faster at reads than mechanical disk drives, make no noise, consume less power and produce less heat, have no moving parts, and will operate over a higher range of ambient temperatures than a standard mechanical disk drive. There are also disadvantages. SSD drives have been more expensive, have been of lower capacity, wear out faster (have lower MTBF stats), write more slowly, and have a lower storage density.

Samsung has very high hopes for the drive being used by Dell. Jim Elliot, vice president of memory marketing, says, “While SSD’s have always been touted for their performance, Samsung is turning the storage industry upside down now with an SSD that delivers truly disruptive performance. Getting our exceptionally high performing 256GB SSD in a notebook is analogous to having a 15,000rpm drive, without all of its size, noise, power and heating drawbacks.” The drive is said to be 2.4 times faster than a comparable 7200 rpm mechanical drive.

If the reliability and mean time between failure (MTBF) statistics improve to the extent that an SSD will last as long or longer than a mechanical drive, the solid state devices would win hands down, especially given the price decreases we are seeing with the newer devices. This is an important part of improving the overall portable computing experience, and once which we are looking forward to trying for ourselves.

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Entry was posted on Saturday, January 17th, 2009 at 4:15 pm under Notebook, Storage, Technology.

Read more entries by Michael W. Jones.
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