nitro rig driver,

Not a silly question - just need to do your research! Solid state hard drives do exist and have been around for a while, but it's only fairly recently that the price of flash memory has dropped to the point that it is even remotely comparable to a conventional HDD.

NB - refer particularly to the "Disadvantages" section in the Wiki article!

SD

Thanks SD-wrist considered slapped !!!

still wundering if i should buy a portable drive to backup my computer just incase of a terminal HDD.(after all its a time machine of several yrs old)
i know the sensible answer is yes just need to get round to it.:O

nitro rig driver,

No wrist slap intended.

Back it up sooner rather than too late! :ok:

A 500GB USB disk can be yours for about £75-80. No excuse not to, really.

SD

My brain aches too much to do the maths now, but I suspect that there could well be a long-term power issue to consider with solid state meory as well as the fact that solid state is transient if you want the high speed of access.

I guess the power thing is getting more even when considered up against disc devices - the density of memory circuits on silicon gives off a lot of heat which means that it's consuming & expending power. Discs also give off heat as they need to spin the discs so that is a close one. Given the density of the data per sq cm that we're getting on discs now I'd estimate it's a close call if you measured current consumed per MB of data stored.

To get high speed with solid state memory you also need to use dynamic storage, ie capacitive, which tends to leak & thus need refreshing, again consuming power & giving a potential for loss of the data if the power fails. On discs you're switching magnetic polarity so the data tends to be held without a need for power to keep it there.

All of this could be moot anyway, as we get high speed data networks & the wider availability of hosted services it'll be easier to let someone else worry about the storage while you just connect from anywhere & access your data.

BTW - Can anyone explain why my brilliant idea to make discs square & store additional data on the corners never took off :O

Slightly over-generalizing, no computer will ever take more power than your lightbulbs, water heater, etc. If you don't replace all your light bulbs with CFs and turn them all off relgiously when you're not in the room, if you don't always dry your wash off-peak, then don't worry about your computer. It spends most of its life waiting for you to press the next key.

I deal with "SSD is really important" fanatics all the time. I do believe SSD will win out very soon, but right now I do two things: provide said fanatico with a second battery, and book said fanatico onto flights with seat power.

I personally believe that the battle isn't between SSD and HD, but between SSD and fuel cells. When you can recharge a notebook in 2 minutes, who cares what the battery life is? People think they are concerned about battery life, but actually they are concerned about recharge/tether time.

I dry mine in the garden for most of the year - it's free, and it smells good afterwards. I live north of Edinburgh.