The bang for the buck ratio is still out of balance. Think of one of these drives as a turbo thumb drive. Like the thumb drive the SSD has a limited amount of read/write functions before it gives up the ghost. Whereas platter type drives have been known to work flawlessly for decades.
Think hard before you plop down your money. This technology is still learning how to walk.
The bang for the buck ratio is actually on par with where magnetic storage was as they started ramping up platter densities on magnetic hard drives. I also disagree with the parallel you draw with the SSD compared to a "turbo thumb drive." SSDs contain many more technical enhancements over a thumb drive, including TRIM among others, that help maintain long system life. SSDs are also not prone to the same hazards as a standard UFD. UFDs are the modern day equivalent of the floppy disk - don't trust them to anything sensitive or "can't lose" or you'll be sorry. Unfortunately, it is the other way around when it comes to reliability.
In terms of platter drives working for decades, sure, but they are increasingly rare. Ever heard of planned obsolescence? Yeah, magnetic hard drives have them for sure.
I agree with the sentiment that SSDs aren't yet as proven as hard drives, but remember a few points on the matter:
CCP has been using SSDs for years for high end enterprise operations on their server cluster for Eve Online.
SSDs have higher shock tolerances because they don't have any moving parts, so you can safely carry computers around while they're turned on, vs platter drives, God help you if you trip (well, if you trip anyway in both cases
)
I have an Intel 40GB X25-M at work and it's been working flawlessly for a year. I also upgraded the hard drive I had in my laptop - I've had the system for 3 years, but I've been through 5 platter based drives and the damn thing just sits on my desk at home. Not high reliability at all. I switched it to a Corsair Force 120GB drive, and the performance increases went through the roof. It's also lasted longer than 3 of those 5 platter based drives have prior. Yuck.
