SSD, Solid State Drive is a hard disk without any moving parts. In an ordinary hard disk there is a rotating disk spinning when it is in use.
Solid State Drive can be compared with a memory card used in cell phones, cameras and so on. No moving parts and they do not move in this hard disk. The advantage with these hard disks is that they can tolerate shock and rougher treatment than an ordinary hard disk. Some of these disks can read and write faster than normal rotating hard disks. This will result in quicker start up of the computer and that software will be faster than with normal disks.
Intel promise that they will during the next two years deliver very fast SSD disks. The capasity will increase to 80 to 160 Gb and the prices will be half of what they are today. If this will be the case, the SSD will be normal to see in any computer in the near future.
Troy Winslow in Intel says to CNET that Intel disks will be faster than Samsung 128 Gb SATA-II disks with reading and writing speed of 100/80 Mb pr second.
When Intel launches their products it will be obvious that not all SSDs are made in the same way, says Winslow.
Intel has already SSD disks on the market, however these have maximum storage of 16 Gb and the read and write capacity is very low on these.
Today it is mainly the professional computers that has SSD disks because of the relatively high price on these. If you are to buy the new MacBook Air from Apple the normal version with a 80 Gb hard disk will cost you around 3.100 USD. If you rather would like to have the 64 Gb SSD disk, the price will be around 5.000 USD. There is a difference of around 1.900 USD for the SSD version.
Several tests has shown that the performance is not any significantly better with the SSD disk versus the normal rotating hard disk, and you will have less storage capacity for a much larger sum of money.