[Cube] solid state hard drive?

[Andrew in Ann Arbor]

 >> I'm hoping that hard drives as we know them will finally die, and get
 >> replaced with solid-state devices. I'm betting that Apple will be the
 >> first one to put such devices in the mass market product, as always.

If you've got the budget you can get an IDE flash drive from Sandisk:
<http://www.sandisk.com/industrial/flash-drive.asp>
Last time I looked the 4 Gb drive was $4000.
Another option is an adapter that lets you plug a compact flash card 
into an IDE cable.
Since I can't afford $4k for a drive I got an 800 Mb drive off Ebay and 
am using it in a laptop.
It's totally silent and really helps the battery life.
I suspect it's slower than a regular hard drive but haven't measured it.
There's also concern that the flash drive will degrade with time when 
used intensively (like for an OS scratch file) but I've been using this 
drive for a few years now with no problems.

-- 
Andrew in Ann Arbor