Guide Note

Solid State Drives are an alternative to hard disk drives, containing no moving parts, thus resulting in quicker information access. Solid State Drives are beginning to appear in laptops, but are currently more expensive than standard hard drives.

Fast Facts

1. Created by: M-Systems, now part of SanDisk
2. First introduced: 1995
3. Capacity: 16 GB - 256 GB

• Faster startup
• Faster boot
• No noise
• Reliability
• Performance

• Price
• Low capacity
• High vulnerability
• Limited write cycles
• Slow write speeds
• Low storage density

The StorageTek company created the first solid-state drive in 1978. The Sharp PC-5000 introduced in 1983 used 128 kilobyte solid-state storage cartridges with bubble memory. M-Systems then introduced the flash-based solid-state drives in 1995. The drives have been used successfully by the military and aerospace industry and are now beginning to be used in regular laptops.