Flash has a wear mechanism for writing, limiting the number of erase (and thus write) cycles. The firmware in the device does "wear leveling" which spreads the

Flash has a wear mechanism for writing, limiting the number of erase (and thus write) cycles. The firmware in the device does "wear leveling" which spreads the wear around as evenly as possible rather than concentrating it. The net result is that the SSD will probably outlast the computer it is in. http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Solid-state_drive#Disadvantages http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Solid-state_drive#Disadvantages Depending on how the "garbage collecting" (moving active sectors out of erase blocks and erasing the blocks, number of erased blocks held in reserved, etc.) is implemented, SSDs can be fast for initial writing, but slow down significantly after they are used a while. Some manufacturers use better algorithms, but the algorithms are based on heuristics and trade-offs, so what works well for your neighbor may not work as well for you. http://arstechnica.com/hardware/news/2009/10/intels-black-box-40-performance-increase-mass-ssd-death.ars http://arstechnica.com/hardware/news/2009/10/intels-black-bo... http://torvalds-family.blogspot.com/2008/10/so-i-got-one-of-new-intel-ssds.html http://torvalds-family.blogspot.com/2008/10/so-i-got-one-of-...