Solid state disks not ready for another 2 years

Cohen is not alone in his assessment of consumer-grade SSD. Consumer-grade SSD generally uses multilevel cell (MLC) NAND flash memory, which has greater capacity and a lower-price point but suffers from slower I/O and as much as 10 times fewer read/writes over its life span. Corporate-grade SSD uses single-level cell (SLC) NAND memory and multiple channels to increase data throughput and wear-leveling software to ensure data is distributed evenly in the drive rather than wearing out one group of cells over another. And, while some consumer-grade SSD is just now beginning to incorporate the latter features to increase its performance, there will still be a cost/capacity disparity for years to come.

Other analysts agree, and even disk drive makers, including Fujitsu Ltd., do not see themselves producing SSD for at least another two years. That's how long it will take before the cost-vs.-benefit ratio makes sense for SSD to be a viable alternative to hard disk drives in laptops and PCs.

"I think you need to get to 128GB for around $200, and that's going to happen around 2010. Also, the industry needs to effectively communicate why consumers or enterprise users should pay more for less storage," says Joseph Unsworth, an analyst at Gartner Inc., referring to the fact that a 1TB hard disk drive today can cost under $200. A 1TB SSD would cost tens of thousands of dollars, he says.