Dell introduces solid state drives

Dell has introduced solid state drives into two of its corporate notebooks.

Solid state drives (SSDs) — as opposed to traditional hard disk drives (HDDs) — are based on flash or volatile memory and therefore do not have any moving parts. As a result they tend to be faster, quieter, longer-lasting and significantly more shock-resistant, and they also reduce start-up time on the notebook.

The first Dell models to feature SSDs are the Latitude D420 ultra-mobile and D620 ATG semi-rugged notebooks, which have been made available in the US. The price for the drives is relatively high at $549 (£275).

According to Dell, the drives will become available to European customers "soon", although the exact launch date has not been revealed.

The SSDs are the same dimensions as Dell's HDDs and they use the same connectors, so they can be integrated easily into existing systems. Manufactured by SanDisk, the SSDs chosen by Dell have a capacity of just 32GB, which is smaller than most current HDDs.