The one big difference between spinning disk and Flash-based systems is spinning disk controller designers never worried about wearing disk out, so there is inefficiencies in how the applications are written.

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The biggest threat to the spinning disk is the flash memory, which has many advantages over the spinning disk but is ten times the price on a per-megabyte basis.

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The initiative inspired several advances in laptop technology, in terms of features (flash memory instead of a spinning hard-drive), design (a laptop-to-tablet form and a waterproof keyboard) and price reductions.

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Flash is still far pricier than spinning disks.

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When properly engineered, SSDs are now at least as reliable as traditional spinning hard drives (although cheap flash can still be frustratingly unreliable).

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"Solid state" storage systems, like flash memory, offer some clear advantages over the spinning-disk drives of the past.

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Hard drive makers are in a race to boost capacities and keep spinning disks at least a beat ahead of flash drives on the value curve.

ENGADGET

Flash as a form of solid state storage is much faster for reading and writing data than the spinning disks in traditional disk drives.

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