Solid State Data Storage - Science Of Stupid

Solid State Data Storage

In 1999, if you had an 8 gigabyte (gb) hard drive, you were the cool kid on the block. “What can you possibly fill that whole thing up with?” your friends would ask you.

Computer games you bought at the store fit on a single CD-ROM, and everyone knew that you had to wait for your hard drive to spin up before each level. Those of us who were especially caring of our expensive, magnetic, spindled drums of data would even run Scandisk and Defrag on them (which would take hours, of course). Things were looking up, too, as hard drive experts predicted that in the year 2000, 30gb hard drives could be as cheap as $200.

Now, imagine yourself waking up in the middle of the night because someone outside your window is throwing pebbles on it. When you open your window, you notice that they look exactly like you, only about 10 years older. They tell you not to worry, because in a single decade hard drives will be ridiculously smaller, lack any moving parts, be practically weightless and can withstand far more brutal environments.

Oh, and it’s far cheaper, too. You know that 8gb hard drive you just spent $150 on? You can get one that fits in your coin pocket for $15, down the street.