SSD drives for laptops: Blessing or Curse?

When talking about SSD drives in laptop computers, everyone agrees on one thing: they cost a LOT. Based on that increased cost, there are very high expectations for performance. Of course, how that performance is defined and measured varies from person to person, and according to at least one researcher out there, the results are not good.

There's a report out on the 'net that is claiming 20-30% return rates for SSD drives, way above the numbers for standard spinning drives. The report claims that a significant portion of the returns are due to defects, not performance. Needless to say Dell is vehemently disputing the claims, as they are the "large manufacturer" that is implied in the report.

The most interesting thing about the Dell response is the admission that the SSD performance just wasn't up to the standards of regular drives. The testing they mention suggests that the drives perform like slow spinning drives. The good news that Dell shares is that they have a new version of the drives from Samsung that supposedly performs better than even the 7200 RPM drives that Dell has on the market. The new drive has a faster interface speed that apparently makes the drives perform reasonably well. They're being marketed by Dell as the "Dell Flash Ultra Performance SSD" so if you're in the market for an SSD in your laptop, aim for one of these. They're going to run you an extra $100, above and beyond the $1000 up-charge for the "regular" 64GB SSD drive and they only appear to be an option on the Precision model right now. And they're two weeks delayed in shipping. But if that fits your need, you might actually get the performance you're looking (and paying a LOT) for.

The other aspect of "performance" that comes with the SSDs is the reduction in heat and noise and the improvement in battery life. Those are realized even with the slower drives, and should remain with the new ones.

I don't know if the report is true or not, but it gave me a good reason to talk about the SSD technology and the improvements that have been realized recently, so I consider it worthwhile.