Are SSDs really better than traditional hard drives?

More and more PC hardware vendors are swapping out traditional hard drives and replacing them with solid state drives (SSD) which use flash memory.  The logic behind this being traditional electro-mechanical hard drives are more prone to failure than solid state devices.

It makes sense to expect SSD drives will be more reliable since they have no moving parts. They are certainly going to be more tolerant to shocks and vibration.

We also know that  SSD drives can transfer data much quicker than traditional hard drives.

The only real downside is the higher cost of SSD storage over traditional hard drives.  Or is it?

Here are a couple of interesting blog postings that debunk some popular misconceptions about flash memory and its use in SSD drives.

SSD Reliability lower than discs?

How does flash storage fail?

The SSD reliability article dates back to December 2010 and it is true that 3 years is a long time when you are talking about technology.  While I am sure that SSD storage has been getting more reliable over time, there is still a place in digital signage for traditional hard drives, especially when your project has limited budgets or has high data storage requirements.