A lot of questions have been raised about solid state drives or SSDs. Are they really that fast? Will they last for many years or are they easy to break? Will getting one be cost effective? Will they become the next staple in hard drive technology? All of these questions needs to be answered. This article will give you a short yet concise idea about the pros and cons of getting a solid state drive versus sticking to our old hard drive.

Solid state drives is an non-volatile array flash memory modules configured like a flash drive so that it retains memory even if there is no power. It is very much like your RAM but the RAM could not retain memory after power is taken away.

One of the key features of the SSD that makes it different from a conventional hard-disk drive is that it has no moving parts. The conventional hard drive relies on mechanical action to work. It has a magnetic platter that spins at really high rates (up to 7200 RPM) and a metal arm that writes and stores data on the platter.

With the SSD's architecture, booting your pc and accessing/storing data is faster because unlike the conventional HDDs , solid state drives can access data almost instantly for it does not wait for the platter to spin and for the arm to find where the data is located.

SSDs use less power mainly because it does not have a motor like the one used to spin the platter on an HDD. This is very good for notebooks because it will add more hours to battery life. Other advantages of not having mechanical parts is that they generate less heat and noise. It is also exempted from the wear and tear of those moving parts so it will have a longer lifespan.

How much longer depends on several factors including the controller and type of flash memory (SLC or MLC, 3x nm or 2x nm). This is mainly a factor for enterprise users, however; for most consumers, any modern solid state drive will likely outlive their computer's overall life span.