SSD - Solid State Drive

I was excited today when I received an email from Alienware stating that they now have a laptop equipped with the new Solid State Drive.

For those who are unaware, this is basically the future of the Hard Disk Drive. Instead of using the old platters that spin at high speeds while being read, the SSD uses technology similar to what USB data drives (keychain drives) use. This is good, since it consumes a lot less power, and is a lot less likely to fail. (No moving parts to break down over time.) It's also quite a bit faster.

I had read about these a while ago, and was keeping track of the progress for a bit, and then I forgot about it. Until the email. Of course, I just bought a laptop from Dell, and I'm certainly not going to pay Alienware the premium they charge just for their name, but I figured I could head to Newegg.com and check to see if they had any.

And by God, they do have some SSDs!

FOR OVER $400 A PIECE! And we're talking 16 GB IDE drives for that price. Uh...I think I will pass for now, thanks. I guess I'll be waiting until the prices come way down on these before purchasing one, considering that for $400 I can buy almost a TB of storage with a SATA interface.

Oh well, the concept is still cool.