Obviously size restrictions will mean people will be using standard harddisks for a while for mass storage. but when do you plan to buy your first solid state HDD?
Well, there are a few price ranges I'd consider it but only if it were in small capacities. 50 GB should be sufficient, for the OS and quite a few applications. Note: I voted multiple times since different answers reflected my stance.
I would expect solid-state disks to be similar to a Raptor - i.e. fast, expensive and not available in large quantities. I wouldn't buy one unless it had speed advantages over traditional HD's.
The speed advantages are pretty impressive, oasked - OS boot in <10 seconds in some cases. I'll get one when it's less than £1 per gig - a 30GB OS/swap file silent drive with no seek time would be pretty nice.
i think 150Gb, will be when id consider it, give plenty of space for windows and nix, if there as good as i have heared thou id consider a 100gig
I'd wait till 100-200GB drives just so I can still dual boot with a decent size for my OS and apps. The problem is my storage drive would have to wait till they hit a minimum of 200GB since I'm currently using 2 200gb's in raid0 and it's half full.
I'd probably buy when it's droped under £1/GB but, I'd not seriously invest in it until drives are produced with a method other than battery backup, I don't really want to have to backup my machine too regularly.
I could live with 32GB but ideally 64GB. Only when and if I finally upgrade to Vista though. Basically I want to use one first, see what kind of advantages it has and if it really does increase the percievable speed of the system. Given all those factors, in my mind it will be worth a value and that's what i'll pay.
Got me an 8 GB SSD in my laptop now. It's an older model, and feels slightly slower than my old 5400 RPM drive, but it's dead silent. I'll probably switch my desktop over to SSD when I can get 80 GB or so for less than $200.
When they become cheap and large enough and when the performance is sorted out. Also, when they get rid of the write limit.
i would be quite happy with a 32gig SSD for the OS and the few basics. i would also have a bog standard HDD for mass storage etc. The only thing holding me back is the price. i could see myself spending £64 for 32gigs but £1 per gig isnt asking too much. Ive played with RAM drives before, but they were always limited as i couldnt boot off them and i never had enough RAM in the computer! (that and them being volitile ment that my PC couldnt be turned off! )
I'll be going SSD on my next laptop purchase, as I see that benefiting me more than on a Desktop. However, if SSD is still too pricey, I'll probably hold off until it becomes affordable.
When they become similar to current hard-drives, I would consider getting one with a laptop or possibly desktop.
The only thing bugging me with the current HDDs is that they break down way too often. IMO current HDDs are silent enough (fans hide the idle noise), except obviously the Raptors and the SCSI-stuff. Increased speed would ofc be nice, but I don't find the current transfer speeds too irritating. Hard to say about the prices though. It depends how they and standard HDD-technology develop from now on.
When they become equally or lesser priced that current HDDs, and have sizes of 100GB+ Also, with such small read times (no seek and all) wouldn't RAID 0 become obsolete or at least highly impractical? And with higher safety RAID 1 as well?
