Solid State Drives

Standard PATA and SATA hard drives still make up the vast majority of desktop PC, or even notebook, configurations, but demand for Solid State Drive (SSD) technology is growing by leaps and bounds. SSD drives replace conventional hard drive platters, motors and read heads with flash memory, lowering noise, heat and power requirements, while offering significant performance gains. These SSD drives also represent a popular upgrade for existing notebooks, and even high-end desktop users are migrating to this technology as their primary boot/OS drive. Due to this increased demand and a significant rise in SSD visibility with online retailers, this is an emerging market that deserves coverage. In this section, we are covering 2.5" SATA SSDs, although 3.5" models will be forthcoming.

Wow, what a difference a month makes! October marked the debut of Sold-State Drives in our monthly price roundup, but now that November has rolled around, several models fell significantly in price. Three of these even hit triple digits, as the Crucial 64GB (-$165), Crucial 32GB (-$104) and OCZ Core V2 120GB (-$102) SSDs dropped off the table. Overall, there was a total of fourteen double-digit price drops, and that's from only twenty-one returning Sold-State Drives. The only question was whether the aggregate chart decrease would top $1K, but it fell just short and dropped by only $922 for the month.