Solid State Disks are an exciting new technology using NAND FLASH RAM. We have seen this type of technology for a number of years in USB "Pen" drives. SSD using a more reliable, more expensive type of NAND FLASH to give reliability - essential to a Hard Disk Drive.

NAND FLASH RAM does have a limit to the number of times it can be written to. All SSD Manufacturers compensate for this using embedded software to wear level the writing operation to the disk. This ensures that no areas on the drive get written to more often than others, making the entire drive consistent in its wear-ability. 

SSD is available in SATA, IDE and SCSI (Adtron only). It will not make a very slow, old PC miraculously quick. It will make new fast PC's even quicker.

SLC Vs MLC

SLC

Single Layer Cell (SLC) - These drives are faster, more robust Solid State drives designed for server and heavy usage applications that require the very best drive. Manufacturer reliability ratings are typically stated that writing 500GB per day, every day, will eventually fail after 10 years. In reality - very few applications would write that amount of data continuously which means your drive will last beyond any reasonable usage. In 10 years time it is unlikely that your product/application will remain in use as a new and faster version will be available. SLC drive manufacturers also often state Inputs Outputs Per Second (IOPS) - this is the number of concurrent read/writes to the drive that can be made, essential for server use.

MLC

Multi Layer Cell (MLC) - These drives are still faster than HDD drives, are generally faster at reading rather than writing. They often do not quote IOPS and so are geared for the consumer market for laptop and desktop usage. Reliability ratings state that writing 200GB per day, every day, will eventually fail after 6 years. Laptops and desktops typically are replaced after 3 to 4 years which means your MLC SSD will outlast it many times over unless you are wiping the drive every day and writing to the entire drive each day for 6 years.

Applications

The applications crying out for SSD are endless, but they are not just based around PC and server technology. Due to the greater reliability and shock-proof capabilities, any system that requires storage will benefit.

We can supply drives to the industrial sector for ticketing systems, transport logging, audio and visual sector, video gaming, parking systems, military, medical the list goes on.