Anyone here have an SSD (solid state drives)? I really would love to have one since they drastically decrease wait times (especially boot/shutdown) and they're overall a lot faster than hard drives. They're so freaking expensive though.
I got one a while ago but only installed it last weekend. I was worried I did something wrong somewhere along the line because I kept having major issues with internet (Firefox freezing up ALL THE TIME and the internet frequently dropping) but as the week has progressed, I learnt that Firefox is just an awful browser (although the one I'm stuck using, sadly) and my ISP is just as bad as I like to exaggerate it is and that the modem/router combo we have to use is just crap. But I digress. I'm enjoying the drive. Programs open in an instant and start up and shut down are like a dream. But I don't think it would have been worth it if I'd paid full price because while everything's super quick, it already kind of was on my computer anyway. I got a 120gb drive and I think I paid ~$150 for it or so? Probably closer to $175 or $180 with taxes and everything but still pretty good. It's an OCZ something-rather.
So is that what solid state drives do? They improve computer speeds? I never really knew what they did, I thought they just store your information better. That sounds great, but they cost way way more than regular hard drives, so I'd say they aren't worth it.
They're flash memory, so boot times and program startup times tend to be markedly faster than with a physical hard drive. Like you said though, costs are the main issue, since you can get a 250GB hard drive for $50 or so, while the same size SSD would likely be in the $400 range.
Yeah it would be nice to have faster startup times but it just isn't a necessity. Even with a normal hard drive, my laptop starts up decently quick as well as the programs on it. Maybe if SSDs only cost 2 times the amount I'd consider one.
