Windows Tip: Keep an eye on solid state disk technology
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Storage technologies have been big in the news in the last couple of years. This is mostly due to the exploding storage needs of business as the information economy matures. It seems like only a few years ago that several gigabytes was enough for most mail servers and file servers, but now we're pushing terabytes and you can buy appliances that give you a terabyte or more of storage in a compact rackspace unit. Most of us never dreamed about having that much storage capability (or the headache of learning how to manage it effectively) but some news I saw recently indicates that innovation isn't slowing in the storage technology field.
What caught my attention is the new Q30 notebook computer from Samsung [1]. What's so innovative about this machine? It has no hard drive! Instead, it uses a Solid State Disk (SSD) based on flash-based NAND memory. Not only does SSD provide better performance than traditional hard drives, they're more resistant to mechanical shock, don't have moving parts that can wear out, and are noiseless. The Q30 comes with a 30GB SSD and is not yet available in North America, but you can bet it won't be long until machines like these appear on the market here and they'll quickly dominate the market for high-end notebook users.
IT departments have always known that the hard drive is the main performance bottleneck, and that's why this development is exciting as it will push performance up significantly. Therefore, I suggest keeping your eyes on SSD technology as it makes inroads into the notebook, desktop, and eventually server arena. A good place to start your research is this Wikipedia article[2], and if any readers out there have begun to use this technology in the enterprise, please feel free to email me your experiences so I can share the with our readers.
[1] http://www.notebookreview.com/default.asp?newsID=2953
[2] http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Solid_state_disk
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