Solid State Hard Drives ???

They are faster, quieter and use less power than rotating disc drives.

The biggest downside is that they are immensely more expensive, per gigabyte than are conventional drives.  Yes, they have a finite number of read-write cycles and currently are considered less reliable than rotating hard drives.

By the time you kill off the SSD to use it will have lasted the same as standard drives.  This does though remind me that its likely a bad idea (and not needed) to run DEFRAG.

Please elaborate further on the repeated use/ longevity issue. How long will this drive last the average user  under 'normal' use ?

I was under the impression it would not last nearly as long as a standard drive. 

I find it hard to understand why Dell would put these in their laptops knowing this ???

Not necessarily - these still aren't as well proven as standard hard drives.  If you have a system that will be exposed to a lot of shock while in use, they make sense.  For everyday use and day in-day out reliability, hard drives still win.

I was speaking to the repeated use question...  expected lifespan.

Considering the lifespan of a standard hard drive - about 3 years in a notebook computer - you should get that out of a solid state drive.  However, as with hard drives when the first appeared, reliability of SSDs will improve with time.  The technology is still fairly new and while solid state memory works well in less demanding applications such as phones and MP3 players, there have been issues with reliability in notebook computers.  Error correcting algorithms will improve with time, but the simple fact is that with so many cells in an SSD, some will fail with time - in some cases rendering the drive useless.

You generally don't see SSDs being offered in business-class notebooks, nor are there SSDs in widespread use in servers and other mission critical applications.  The reliability just isn't there because the field experience just is not there - yet.  As with ANY hard drive, your data is as secure as you most recent backup.

THERE IS NO ISSUE

The reliability question is about things OTHER than the number of times you can write to a particular block.  It will take YEARS to reach this limit unless you do something out of the ordinary.  Standard drives also last for YEARS - but IDE, SATA, and SDD drives typically all now have a 1 year warranty so dont stress over it.

It should be noted that what was true 5 years ago may not be true now.  SSD usage is still low in the consumer market but compared to just a few years ago it has exploded. Because its still expensive and not as mature the failures will/should be higher but I can remember this happening with "fast" IDE drives before SATA was available as it is based on being new more than how often you write data.  Also, beware the clones!  Easy to make cheaper knockoffs and I suspect it will not be long before we see these on the market.

Anyway the "risk" is being an early adopter.  You should have a specific need for SSD.  If you do not know then having one might not matter to you and likely little benefit.  Dell provides them as do other brands for those consumers that want one.  There are other forums full of discussions about SSD usage by enthusiast and power users that compare brands and performance.  If interested I suggest reading somewhere other than the Dell forum - which is primarily a complaint forum.

Used to be nearly all drives had 3 year... now this can no longer be expected.  Some have less some have 5 yr.   Do you recall the mass change about 5 years ago? Not sure when.  They switched many to 1year with optional 3 year for consumer drives.   Then to be more confusing the HD warranty will vary if comparing OEM vs Retail. 

There are SSD's that use single instead of multicell in which case some of the issues are dealt with.  And there are SSD's with longer warranty periods - but at a premium cost.  This is no different than traditional drives were "back in the day" but failure rates, although high for a while, were not due to the concept of heads and platters.

My point simply being that the failure rate on X writes isnt a factor in normal use.  It might fail on day 2 but not for that ;)

There is still an issue - the problem is that NOT all cells in a single hard drive will run the maximum number of write-rewrite cycles and there are not as many of them as spares are there in a standard hard drive.  Therefore, a solid state drive has less of a margin for error than a conventional drive.

There clearly ARE issues when manufacturers of SSDs offer 1-year warranties while the lion's share of hard drives purchased by consumers carry a 3-year warranty.

Hard drives carry well-proven technology with well known failure modes and well worked out safeguards for circumventing these.  They still fail, but at a lower rate than do SSDs, which have plenty of unknowns.

You are correct that the rule of early adoption applies - and it should be seen in light of the fact that SSDs sacrifice reliability and data integrity for speed, low power consumption and silence.

Then what you both are saying is, it is not the write/ rewrite that is the problem. But that it is a new untested tech.

Under normal use, concerning the write/ rewrites this drive should last years (barring any other failures)

Are there any statistical numbers avail for how long an SSD will last as compared to a conventional drive ?

My concern is that Dell installed a backup/restore OS Win 7 (Dell Data-Safe) ON the hard drive.

If the drive should fail, I will lose this (along with Win7). 

Should this drive fail, will Dell replace the hard drive with another drive that also has Win7 and DataSafe installed on it  ???

The drive btw, that Dell is using is a Samsung SSD PM 800 2.5 256...

AFAIK all Dells have the ability to create backup media... whether this solves the problem/question I cannot say.  I would pose this question to the Dell and get it in writing.  Many though are buying their upgrades separately as it can be cheaper.  If so, then your original drive can be stored.

Given some thought....  Since constant 'redundent' writing to the SSD could be a problem over time.

Could some/most non-essential writing be redirected elsewhere  ?  Such as the browser cache or temp files be redirected to either RAM or maybe an 8 or 16g SD card.

Since most Laptops come with SD card slots these days. Thereby reducing the writing/ rewriting on the SSD.

SD cards come in fairly large sizes, are not that slow and can be replaced when spent.  The Sans Disk Extreme III's come to mind.

When will Dell start offering a SSD option to desktops such as the Studio XPS 9100?

Given that price sensitivity is even more acute with desktops than notebooks, and that the power needs aren't as acute, it'll be a long while.

Also remember that 30-40% of the worlds supply of flash memory comes from Japan - there have been production shortages after the March 2011 earthquake.