SSD stands for Sold State Drive and is often referred to by many manufacturers as the replacement for HDDs or Hard Disk Drives.
I think this claim misses the point and distracts from the real benefit of using an SSD.
Consider HDDs for a moment; we all use them and we have been since the PC was invented.
In fact hard disks have been around for over fifty years and have changed very little other than being miniaturised.
If you were to take a look at the humble hard disk inside your computer you would see that it is actually a mechanical device with moving heads and spinning disks - that's why we call them 'hard disks' (don't do this by the way - it will kill your drive!).
It is this construction that has changed little in the last fifty years and is often the main cause for hard disk failure.
SSDs on the other hand seem to have solved many of the issues that affect hard disks and therefore provide greater reliability, especially in laptop and notebook computers.
As there are no mechanical parts, they are not sensitive to vibration or shock, so they are actually really useful when out and about shooting on location.
They also care little about the temperatures or conditions that they work in, so dust and humidity are of little concern.
The trouble is (as I mentioned before) many manufacturers of SSDs are claiming that they are the replacement of hard disks.
I don't think this is necessarily true or feasible; especially in desktop systems.
Consider how you work with your data as a photographer; you most likely have all of your images stored on various hard disks.
I don't think this should change.
SSDs are lightning fast, but they can be a bit pricey compared to hard disks, so they are best not used for data storage, but for system performance upgrades.
Of course for your laptop they may be the only drive, but for desktops there is no reason why they cannot coexist.
If you have your PC operating system and applications on the SSD and your data (images for instance) on your hard disks then your system should fly.
Adobe Photoshop loves SSDs and will start in the blink of an eye, manipulate images faster and apply filters and effects at an amazing pace.
I run Windows XP, and with my Kingston Technology SSD it starts up from cold in roughly a tenth of the time it used to when it just had an HDD to boot from.
If you are going to spend the money on an SSD make it work, don't just let it sit there with data on it.
If viewed as a system upgrade to provide super fast performance, SSDs are great and well worth the cost.
Bought as a medium to store your images on; you are wasting your money.
I think this claim misses the point and distracts from the real benefit of using an SSD.
Consider HDDs for a moment; we all use them and we have been since the PC was invented.
In fact hard disks have been around for over fifty years and have changed very little other than being miniaturised.
If you were to take a look at the humble hard disk inside your computer you would see that it is actually a mechanical device with moving heads and spinning disks - that's why we call them 'hard disks' (don't do this by the way - it will kill your drive!).
It is this construction that has changed little in the last fifty years and is often the main cause for hard disk failure.
SSDs on the other hand seem to have solved many of the issues that affect hard disks and therefore provide greater reliability, especially in laptop and notebook computers.
As there are no mechanical parts, they are not sensitive to vibration or shock, so they are actually really useful when out and about shooting on location.
They also care little about the temperatures or conditions that they work in, so dust and humidity are of little concern.
The trouble is (as I mentioned before) many manufacturers of SSDs are claiming that they are the replacement of hard disks.
I don't think this is necessarily true or feasible; especially in desktop systems.
Consider how you work with your data as a photographer; you most likely have all of your images stored on various hard disks.
I don't think this should change.
SSDs are lightning fast, but they can be a bit pricey compared to hard disks, so they are best not used for data storage, but for system performance upgrades.
Of course for your laptop they may be the only drive, but for desktops there is no reason why they cannot coexist.
If you have your PC operating system and applications on the SSD and your data (images for instance) on your hard disks then your system should fly.
Adobe Photoshop loves SSDs and will start in the blink of an eye, manipulate images faster and apply filters and effects at an amazing pace.
I run Windows XP, and with my Kingston Technology SSD it starts up from cold in roughly a tenth of the time it used to when it just had an HDD to boot from.
If you are going to spend the money on an SSD make it work, don't just let it sit there with data on it.
If viewed as a system upgrade to provide super fast performance, SSDs are great and well worth the cost.
Bought as a medium to store your images on; you are wasting your money.