Many new Notebook and Netbook computers now come standard with solid state hard drives, or you have have the option to upgrade to one…but what’s the difference between one of these and a traditional hard drive?

Well for years we’ve all been using magnetic hard drives that use layers of spinning metal disks to store information and there are plenty of moving parts inside.

Solid state drives have been around for a few years, but until now have been prohibitively expensive. They are built around flash memory made up of cells, much like you’ll find in a camera flash card, mobile phone or thumb drive.

As the name suggests, there are no moving parts in a solid state drive which means increased reliability and speed. Get more information at http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Solid-state_drive