While much attention has been paid to the electricity consumption reductions yielded by
Solid-State Disks (SSDs), the use of these flash-memory-based solutions also potentially provides another environmental benefit: a major cut in the batteries used in notebook PCs, according to iSuppli Corp.
A typical notebook PC uses a six-cell battery. However, the use of an SSD can allow a notebook to achieve the same battery life with only four cells.
If all 250 million of the notebook PCs set to be shipped in 2013 used SSDs and moved to four-cell batteries, it would be the equivalent of saving 80 million batteries.
Going one step further, if 693 million notebooks forecasted to be shipped between 2011 and 2013 using SSDs, a one-third savings in cell usage in these notebooks would result in a whopping 231 million batteries that can be saved in those three years alone.
Green Drives
Obviously by reducing the consumption of energy, raw materials and the amount of electronics that contribute to landfill and pollution, switching to SSDs offers a meaningful way to be environmentally friendly while still benefiting consumers.
So while solar power seems to be more buzz worthy in generating news, the green benefits of SSDs haven’t garnered the attention that maybe they deserve.
Of course, stating that the industry could save 231 million batteries in three years is easy. Getting there is hard.
The biggest obstacle remains the upfront costs of SSDs compared to traditional hard drives and iSuppli believes consumers won’t opt for a more expensive hard drive without tangible benefits, especially in the current economic climate.
But the possibility exists that a cellular service type of format may ultimately allow SSDs to finally enjoy mass adoption, where consumers subscribe to some sort of monthly service. Without the assistance of the cellular subsidy model, iSuppli does not expect SSD adoption of greater than 10 percent in notebooks until 2012—eliminating the possibility of this environmental savings in the timeframe discussed here.
Read More, 80 Million Notebook Batteries Will be Saved by 2013 >