The most recent notebook drives, similar to Western Digital's Scorpio Blue 1-terabyte model, are amazingly giant as well as reasonably cheap. The 1TB Scorpio Blue has more storage than the majority customer laptop users will ever require. Amateur filmmakers shooting HD video might wish for a 1TB drive, but the rest of us might get by with a lot less space. Even the 750GB Scorpio Blue, which sells for a very reasonable, is most likely overkill for the standard user.

Which Is Best?

Solid state drives are quicker than hard drives, at least most of the time. Microsoft lately announced it has modified Windows 7 to run quicker on SSDs, even though it hasn't worked out the entire kink yet. For example, older as well as cheaper SSDs running the latest OS might execute poorer than usual hard drives. But Windows 7 notebooks with the most recent SSDs should have a performance edge.

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Not like whirring hard drives with their revolving platters, SSDs are noiseless as well as utilize less power. As they have no rotating parts, they're distant more rugged too. They're slimmer as well as lighter than hard drives, along with manufacturers are finding ways to trim them even more. Samsung, for example, newly launched a line of SSDs for netbooks that weight only 7.5 to 8.5 grams, significantly less than the 75 to 85 grams that 1.8- with 2.5-inch SSDs weigh.

But in spite of SSD's advantages, today's best laptop buyer would liable to select a hard drive. Because even with current price drops, solid state drives are still too exclusive for mainstream, customer use. Example: Intel lately touted the affordability of its latest series of X25-M SSDs. The 160GB model compares that to Western Digital's 1TB Scorpio Blue.