Lighter laptops move to flash-based drives

With 500-gigabyte hard drives in laptops coming soon, why would you even consider buying a notebook with a seemingly paltry 32GB or 64GB solid state drive?

The answer, computer makers hope, is because those laptops will appeal to weighed-down road warriors and corporations tired of fixing the hard drives of employees’ dropped or damaged notebooks.

Solid state drives, which use flash memory, are significantly more expensive than laptops with hard drives.

But with no moving parts, unlike hard disk drives, they’re also considered more reliable and rugged, boot up more quickly and can offer longer battery life.

In the past year, several notebooks in the 2- to 4-pound range using flash-based solid state drives have been released by companies such as Dell, Toshiba and Sony. Prices range from $2,100 to $3,400.

Full article: msnbc.msn.com