Brandywine Computer Services

The appearance of SSD caching has shown us a very fascinating technology that has come about in the second half of the current year. Over the last couple years, Solid State Drives have made their way into the computer hardware market. This technology represents a good step up from the HDD - though in many ways it's kind of an 'its about time ' idea.

The basic idea behind Solid State Drive (SSD) technology is very similar to RAM. The way RAM works, is that individual chips briefly hold info when they are receiving an electric current - the RAM chips are manufactured in a way that allows for intense transfer rates on the chip boards, and the RAM slots are placed close to the CPU - also making allowances for very high transfer rates.

SSDs are like RAM in that they operate on the chip holding info idea - in opposition to platters having bits magnetically arranged to represent info. There aren't any moving parts, and the chip technology together with the boards may be able to be manufactured in a way that allows for unusually high info rates. Two two main differences between this and RAM are the data does not disappear when the power is turned off, and the rates are a bit slow (it is different technology).

So why is the an 'about time ' idea? HDDs have been about for a VERY long time in technology sense. While they have consistently been updating to incorporate more information, the idea of spinning platters holding info is from the 70s. RAM has been in use for a considerable time in systems but manufacturing restraints (cost) have kept RAM from developing into mass storage.

So that brings us today, during an age when storage is growing at a steady rate, but now also The speed of info transfer is coming into play. Cost is still somewhat prohibative - a 500GB SSD will run you around $1000, while a 500GB HDD (high density disk - the platter based hard drives we are used to) you can pick up for $80. SSD caching permit us to strike a balance of cost between speed and storage.

The SSD caching function utilises a small SSD (20-40gb) as a middleman short lived storage device between the HDD and RAM - like how RAM acts, except as an SSD, the information does not disappear unless written over. Once first loading of a program thru the SSD caching function, the user can experience data transfer speeds as if the whole system were installed on a large SSD, but at a small fraction of the cost.