IDC: Solid state drive, hard disk speed gap small

Tag : Used Hard Disk

Solid state drives are attracting more scrutiny as they increase incapacity and decrease in price. ( Dell's $649 drive is a radical price drop since many drives with half the capacitystill sell for more than $700.) Solid state drives (SSDs) are considered to be generally more powerefficient, faster, and in some respects more reliable than harddisk drives.
 
IDC tested 2.5-inch 7200 rpm desktop drives against SSDs and foundthat previous tests comparing SSDs and hard disk drives may bemisleading, according to SearchStorage.com , which cited the IDC report.
 
"Many tests have been done comparing 4200 rpm hard drives to SSDs,"said IDC analyst David Reinsel. "But 5400 rpm is now mainstream andeven 7200 rpm disks are available." The IDC report says theperformance gap between computers with 7200 rpm 2.5-inch drives andthose with SSDs was smaller than expected because the performanceof the entire system must be taken into account.
 
(It should be noted that 4200 rpm hard disk drives are sometimesused in comparative testing because 4200 rpm drives are offeredalong with SSDs in laptops such as the MacBook Air andHewlett-Packard 2510p.)
 
IDC's Reinsel also said that system redesigns will be necessary inboth PCs and enterprise storage systems to reap the full benefitsof SSDs. One of the challenges is that SSDs generally write datamore slowly than they read data.