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Solid State Storage
 A solid-state drive
(SSD) is a data storage device that uses solid-state memory to store
persistent data.
There are a wide variety of devices which fall into the SSD
category including USB flash drives, thumb drives,
Secure Digital cards, Memory Sticks, SmartMedia, and CompactFlash.
The most common use of flash drives is to transport and store
personal files such as documents and multimedia. The vast
majority of PCs support USB drives. Flash capacities are continuing to
increase, with the current maximum capacity now at a lofty 256GB.
However, 256GB sticks are very expensive, and only offer write speeds
of approximately
10 MB/s, so are relatively slow, which is important to bear in mind
when backing up large amounts of data. 16GB and 32GB drives are much
more price competitive and have sufficient capacity to make an
effective backup of personal files. The size of most modern PC hard
disks precludes using solid state storage as a complete system backup
solution. However, some flash drives are
often used for small business turnkey solutions (such as point-of-sale
systems).
In summary, USB flash drives can provide a simple, reliable,
and portable storage. They are very robust mechnically as
they have no moving parts. This minimises the risk of damage to the
drive, although the circuit board and connector can break if the drives
are
mis-treated. Some drives do not even lose their data being immersed in
water, although we would not recommend such treatment.
Besides the relatively small storage capacity and high price
per GB, other disadvantages of the medium is that they are not suitable
for archiving purposes given that the majority of flash drives do not
have a write-protect mechanism. Furthermore the downside of being so
portable is the risk of USB flash drives being stolen or lost.
Jump ahead:
1. Introduction
- Optical Discs (first page)
2. External
Hard Disks
3. Network
Storage
4. Online
Backup Services
5. Tape
Drives
6. Solid
State Storage (current page)
Last Updated Sunday, December 13 2009 @ 10:10 AM EST
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