OCZ Vertex Series Solid State Drive - 30GB, 2.5", SATA II

• High Capacity USB Thumb Drives:
  USB Thumb Drives are now available in sizes as large as 64GB (soon to be even more).  While the USB interface is somewhat slow, these make an ideal solution for their small compact size.  Thumb drives are perfect for storing in files, or other compact spaces.  While their cost per GB is somewhat high, their convenience, USB interface, size, and extremely light weight, make them a very attractive option.
  
  Click Here for 32GB Thumb Drives or for 64GB+ Thumb Drives
   
• External Hard Drives
  Now you have a wide variety of options for external hard drives.  1TB (Terabyte) External Drives are now available for less than $200.00.  External drives come in a wide range of sizes, speeds, and interfaces.  They are available with USB (the slowest), Firewire (medium speed), and SATA/eSATA (the fastest). 
  
  When selecting an external drive, it is important to consider how you will use the drive, and the interface limitations of your computer.  If you have a laptop that only has USB ports, this would be your best (possibly only) option.  If you have USB & Firewire, get a drive that has Firewire for the performance boost.  If your system has a SATA or eSata port, get a drive with this option - it will give you true hard drive to hard drive performance. 
  
  However, also consider where you might need to restore the data.  USB is the most universal, in that almost all systems have USB ports.  If your system dies, and you need to restore your data, this may be your most important consideration.
  
  One last consideration is to keep your backup drive continuously connected, or only connect it during backups.  The general idea of backups is to have a copy of your data in case your system fails - which they do.  But you may also want secure protected backups in a safe or safe deposit box.  Regardless, external hard drives offer an outstanding solution for backing up your data, and the cost per GB is quite low.
  
  Click Here for External USB/Firewire Hard Drives
   
• Hard Drive Docks (Toasters)
  An incredibly simple, yet functional new product category emerged in 2008: Hard Drive Toasters (Hard Drive Docks).  This device lets you plug in regular internal hard drives as though they were pop-in flash drives.  You drop in your hard drive, and the dock instantly gives your system access to that drive, without wiring, or power connections - it's all done by the hard drive toaster.  This way you can use any compatible hard drive as an external removable hard drive for backup purposes!
  
  Click Here for Hard Drive Docks
   
• Online Backup
  Still another option is to use an online backup service.  These come in two forms:
  
       • Backup to another computer over the Internet
       • Backup to a central server using the Internet
  
  The first of these can work very well, and automatically backups when you are online.  The Microsoft OneCare service is one example.  It can backup your data from your system to another in your OneCare account across the Internet automatically, regardless of where you are.
  
  The second involves trusting your critical data to someone else's servers, and usually no real guarantee that your data will always be there.  If they loose your data, they just refund your fee.  This service may be fine for a couple of letters, but business critical data needs to be accessible forever.  For this reason, you are better advised to look to a hardware solution that you control.
   
• Backup Software
  Many products come with backup software included, such as External Hard Drives, and Antivirus products like CA Security Suite.  Most offer excellent features for automated backups.  But remember, backup software and devices, are only as good as your willingness to use them!  So backup regularly, and backup often.

Why SSD?
Compared to a HDD, a SSD can accelerate performance of high availability applications and significantly reduce total cost of ownership because they are:

What Is A Solid State Drive
Solid state is an electrical term that refers to electronic circuitry that is built entirely out of semiconductors. The term was originally used to define those electronics such as a transistor radio that used semiconductors rather than vacuum tubes in its construction. Most all electronics that we have today are built around semiconductors and chips. In terms of a SSD, it refers to the fact that the primary storage medium is through semiconductors rather than a mechanically spinning magnetic media such as a hard drive.

Total cost of ownership—that’s the real value proposition for solid state storage. Although still in the early stage, solid state storage solutions can offer:

• Lower power consumption compared to hard drives
• Improved performance
• Improved environmental balance

But also know that solid state storage technology can present its own set of challenges:

• Lower life expectancy - Flash-memory cells will often wear out after 1,000 to 10,000 write cycles for MLC, and up to 100,000 write cycles for SLC, while high endurance cells may have an endurance of 1–5 million write cycles - HOWEVER many log files, file allocation tables, and other commonly used parts of the file system exceed this over the lifetime of a computer.
• Lower capacities - most SSDs are significantly smaller than HDDs.
• DRAM-based SSDs - require more power than hard disks, when operating; and they still use power when the computer is turned off, while hard disks do not.

The ideal use for SSDs is either in light weight portable applications, where more rugged and lighter weight drives are needed, or on systems that need very fast smaller temporary storage (such as a Photoshop Scratch disk)

Solid State Drive Cautions:

• Solid State Drives DO NOT require defragmentation. It may decrease the lifespan of the drive.
• Turn off or disable any applications or utilities that defragment the SSD - Antivirus, Anti Spyware, Optimize Utilities, etc. or set them to not defragment your SSD.