Solid state disk (SSD, also called solid state drive) is a data storage device that uses nonvolatile memory such as flash, and volatile memory such as SDRAM, to store data, instead of the spinning platters found in conventional hard disk drives. While not technically "disks" in any sense, these devices are so named because they are typically used as replacements for disk drives in situations where conventional drives are impractical.


A typical RAM-based SSD.
A flash SSD in standard 2.5-inch form factor.SSDs based on volatile memory such as SDRAM and are categorized by fast data access, less than 0.01 milliseconds (over 250 times faster than the fastest hard drives in 2004) and are used primarily to accelerate applications that would otherwise be held back by the latency of disk drives.

DRAM-based SSDs typically incorporate internal battery and backup disk systems to ensure data persistence. If power is lost for whatever reason, the battery would keep the unit powered long enough to copy all data from random access memory (RAM) to backup disk. Upon the restoration of power, data is copied back from backup disk to RAM and the SSD resumes normal operation.

However, most SSD manufacturers such as Samsung and BiTMICRO utilize nonvolatile flash memory to create more rugged and compact alternatives to DRAM-based SSDs. These flash memory-based SSDs, also known as flash disks, do not require batteries, allowing makers to replicate standard disk drive form factors (2.5-inch and 3.5-inch). In addition, nonvolatility allows flash SSDs to retain memory even during sudden power outages, ensuring data retrievability. Just like DRAM SSDs, flash SSDs are extremely fast since these devices have no moving parts, eliminating seek time, latency and other electro-mechanical delays inherent in conventional disk drives.

Solid state disks are especially useful on a computer which already has the maximum amount of RAM. For example, some x86 architectures have a 4 GB limit, but this can effectively be extended by putting the swap file on a SSD. These SSD do not provide as fast storage as main RAM because of the bandwidth bottleneck of the bus they connect to.