Solid state drives may offer a wide range of improvements over their mechanical counterparts – including far lower seek times, lower power draw, and improved resilience to shock and temperature – but it seems that the notebook industry still isn't convinced by their merits.

According to a report from DRAMeXchange – quoted by Fudzilla – it is predicted that notebooks equipped with SSDs as their main storage device will make up a paltry 1.5 percent of all notebook shipments in 2009.

The figures are improved somewhat in the netbook market, which the report treats as completely separate to laptops: there, a more impressive 10 percent of all devices shipped will be equipped with solid state storage – a near-must in a small, lightweight device designed to be as portable as possible.

The reason for the poor market penetration is thought to be most related to the higher price: as component prices increase thanks to the struggling global economy and manufacturers seek to increase their margins while offering cheaper units to the masses, it's clear that a 32GB SSD is a harder sell when compared to a 250GB mechanical drive that can often be had for the same price – or a 120GB drive that can be purchased for significantly less.

However, we're already seeing the prices of SSDs suitable for laptop use dropping even as we see peformance rise – which means that while 2009 might be a disappointing year for the SSD, 2010 could well see it poised to take over from the clunky mechanical drives to which we've become so attached.

Do you believe that SSDs are the future for the notebook market, or does the industry still have some major issues to address before you'll give up your spinning platters? Share your thoughts over in the forums.