Tim asks, "I've been thinking of getting a small solid state hard drive for my computer - something in the 16 GB range - so I can have my operating system load faster, and have the system wake from hibernation a lot faster than it could with a physical hard drive. I've heard that the drives can wear down after a certain number of writes - how long do solid state hard drives last, and will I be replacing mine sooner than a typical hard drive?"

When it comes to solid state hard drives, it's a simple truth that the less you write to them, the longer they're going to last. With the latest generation of hard drives, a sector won't fail for a few million write (and possibly longer). There's also error correction and wear usage algorithms to ensure that the drive doesn't suddenly start to shrink in space, or completely refuse to write to disk.

Flash based memory - like your typical solid state hard drive - can only be written to so many times. Every sector of the hard drive is made up of a really small amount of flash memory, so each sector can only be written to a few times before failing (reading doesn't affect the drive). So, engineers came up with wear protection algorithms: unlike a typical hard drive, which writes to the disk practically anywhere it can, solid state hard drives will write to any sector it can as dictated by the number of writes that sector has already had.

So, the fewer number of writes a sector has had, the more likely it is that the hard drive will choose to write to it. This presents a couple of interesting questions:

Since the data is not "in order" will this affect the performance of the drive?
How do file that are stored longer affect the lifespan of the drive, versus a continuous swapping of files?

To answer the first question: no, data does not need to be "in order" on a solid state hard drive to achieve optimal performance. Since there are no moving parts, solid state hard drives can just "shoot" the data off to the computer as it is requested. the current generation of solid state disks can actually fill the entire SATA II bus (causing the need for SATA III, or SATA 6.0Gb/s, to be rushed to the market).

The second question is a little trickier to answer, but the general consensus is that keeping the two types of files - long term and short term storage - on the same SSD could seriously damage the lifespan of the drive; for example, keeping the operating system and the swap file on the same disk could reduce the expected lifespan of a solid state drive by upwards of three years.

This occurs because the wearing algorithm must find empty space to write to. If the same section of disk is always occupied by the same files, then the rest of the drive will wear unevenly. So, if you had an operating system that took up 8GB of space, and a swap file that was 8GB large (16GB total), half of the hard drive (the swap file side that is constantly in use) would fail much sooner than the operating system side. On the other hand, if you used an 8GB SSD for an 8GB swap file, the drive would still fail sooner than a drive used simply for storage, but it would last much longer than the 8GB half of the 16GB disk.

So, how long do solid state disks last? It depends on what you use them for. If you want to get extreme performance out of your swap file, you'll likely see your solid state disk fail after one to three years of use. If you're just looking to store your games, movies, and music on a solid state disk, and you're not going to constantly write to them, then you can expect to see upwards of five year (or more) use out of them.

If you're interested in a relatively cheap solid state hard drive, check out the Patriot 32GB solid state hard drive - it's $115, but its performance - which is on the low end of the scale for solid state hard drives - can't be matched by physical hard drives.

Do you have a question you need answered? E-mail me! lordkat@gmail.com

Click here to check out How to Build a Gaming Computer for Under $1000.

Be safe,

Jason