Why Solid-State over Regular Hard Drive?

[legaleye3000]

What is the advantage of the solid-stage drive?

I know no moving parts and I think speed. Is that it?

Thanks!

(If its faster, is it quite noticably faster?)

Also, are there speakers on the MBAir?

 

[ZachPruckowski]

The 4200 rpm HDD is slow. It's also PATA. It's the same drive speed I have in my iBook, and it's slow even for that machine.

And yes, the MBA does have a speaker. It's a mono speaker, but I have no idea where it's located.

 

[heatmiser]

http://www.apple.com/macbookair/specs.html

Yeah, there's a mono speaker.

 

[Ozy]

No way is it worth the $999 BTO price

 

[lucky3killer]

No way is it worth the $999 BTO price

Yup, SSD is so expensive right now.

Just same as in 80's and early 90's, HDD was so expensive in back in day.

 

[Dimwhit]

I know no moving parts and I think speed. Is that it?

I believe it also consumes less energy, so battery life is improved.

 

[djellison]

Solid State has much better access times ( so generally snappier ), much lower power consumption - but the pure read and write speed for large files is a bit lower.

$999 for the SSD isn't actually that much of a rip off. Figures of £500 are not uncommon for such parts. They're really that expensive. Nowhere near as much as a ripoff as Apple''s BTO Ram where they take a £80 part and charge 5x that.

Doug

 

[ImNoSuperMan]

It should be cooler and less battery hungry i guess.