There's no doubt that the mobile computing world is moving away from clunky, unreliable hard drives towards swifter and quieter solid state "flash" drives at an accelerating rate. Having said that, there's still a long way to go with Solid State Drives (SSD), especially when it comes to capacity and price.

If you want to get on the bandwagon early, Lexar Media has introduced a line of Crucial SSDs that offers speed and—since there are no moving parts in flash memory—durability. Prices on these Crucial SSDs are still quite a few clicks higher than traditional hard drives, however, with the flagship 256 mn Crucial M225 SSD selling for about $600. (You can get a comparably sized hard drive for under $100.)

Speed on this SSD—which is the result of a collaboration between flash memory maker Lexar and RAM manufacturer Crucial—is impressive, with a 250 mb/sec read speed and a 200 mb/sec write speed. There's also reportedly faster boot times during start-up and blazing load times when launching applications. For photographers, this means a cooler, quieter and more durable laptop computer that works faster.

Swapping in the new Lexar Crucial SSD is relatively easy too since it uses the standard 2.5-inch form factor and a SATA 2.0 (3 gb/s) interface with relatively common MLC (multi-level cell) NAND flash components.

Of course, more affordable integration of SSDs into laptops is still a few years away but if you want to be the coolest kid in your photography group, you should look at these Lexar Crucial drives.

Cost: $599 (256 mb Crucial M225 SSD) Further information: www.crucial.com