
SanDisk's SSD5000 shows that flash-based drives really do offer superior performance, while consuming less power. Still, there are some drawbacks. SSDs have been around for many years, and were mostly sold by storage vendors such as Bitmicro and others. However, non-volatile memory, usually flash, has been far too expensive to create storage products that can a) offer sufficient capacity for desktop or mobile use and b) be reasonably priced. Although flash-based drives now have capacities between 8 GB and 32 GB, they are still a bit away from the sweet-spot capacity points, which are 160-200 GB in the desktop space and 80-120 GB in the notebook market. A 32-GB flash drive is also three to four times more expensive than a conventional hard drive with three to four times the capacity. So should you still invest in an SSD so soon? The short answer is yes.