While definitely not widespread, Solid State Drives (SSDs) are slowly conquering the web hosting arena.
While we can say that SSDs have been around for more than 40 years now, they haven’t been really used in the early days of IT. The reason for this was very simple: it was bloody expensive.
Around the mid 90s the technology improved and more and more examples were appearing for serious use of SSDs. Systems requiring high security and availability slowly started to use them. Notable industries were the flight industry and of course the military.
The result of the steady improvement of the technology in the early and mid 2000s was that tablets and smart phones were running on these with a few gigs at the end of the decade.
We can say that 2010 was a milestone. This was the year when Samsung introduced their SSDs for enterprise use.
Soon after this the first web hosts with SSD support appeared on the market – these were not new startups but the good old players who could afford to upgrade their systems.
By now we can say that it has become a trend since more and more of them are providing SSDs in some form. From this InMotionHosting review for example it shows up that InMotion, a well known and reputable web host introduced and provides SSDs for free in every one of their hosting plans without any major price changes.
In my view those who started using them earlier gained a huge advantage on the market compared to the rest. Why do I say this? Because a number of web hosts who were not so well known caught up. Maybe they would have done it without SSDs too, but I think this played an important role in their success.
Increased Speed – As The Main Reason For Using Them
The first and most important factor for implementing SSDs is speed. For instance, in the case of the mentioned InMotion, speed can go up to 20 times more compared to the previous situation.
Some of the other reasons why SSDs are a level beyond traditional servers:
- no moving parts
- less heating
- less energy consumption
- smaller
- no sounds
These are just a few from the long list of advantages. I think we can agree that knowing these advantages the trend will continue and in a few years it will be included in most web hosts arsenal. In the meantime the takeaway for you is to choose a web host which already offers SSD, possibly for free.