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Contrary to the title, this article will be covering Solid State Drives, which use solid state memory. Created in 1978 by StorageTek, it was initally more expensive than hard drives, but as time wore on it became more affordable. It is now used to speed up data transfers.

Overview

The solid state drive stores data on solid state memory. But because they use a more hard disk type interface, they are easily compatible with other systems. Technically, however, they can't be called hard drives because of their lack of moving parts. Solid state drives use an array of semiconductors which are arranged as a disk drive and also use integrated circuits instead of optical or magnetic medias.

Such an arrangement of parts allows for many benefits. One of those benefits is that the transfer of data to and from the drive is a lot faster than electromechanical disk drives and therefore has a low latency. Another benefit is that it is completely silent due to the lack of a cooling fan, which is used to cool hard drive type appliances.

Significance

Solid State drives are important because they add extra speed to the transfer of data without adding additional servers. Even though they have gone back up a bit in price, the advantages of using a solid state drive might outweigh the cost in the long run.