I replaced the drive in my 744T with an IDE SSD because I want it shockproof and I trust SSDs more than HDs.
(...) but I would still be very hesitant in running a consumer SSD as my primary write source over a traditional hard drive. (...)
Even Sound Devices disagrees with that. Not only you can order their top model 788T in a SSD version, they started mentioning SSDs some years ago:
http://www.sounddevices.com/notes/recorders/ssd/
It's not real hard to figure out that Sound Devices is going with those SSD drives due to future availability. Unless Sound Devices is getting some special batch of SSD's with fairy dust then they are using off the shelf consumer hard drives which I assume they probably buy in batches from a vendor like NewEgg.
Here is what Sound Devices says in the link provided:
Solid State Hard Drives (SSD) in the 722 and 744T
Solid state hard drives, or SSD drives, are becoming a feasible storage medium for portable recorders and computers. Like CompactFlash cards, SSD drives have no moving parts and greatly extend the environmental operating conditions of the recorders. SSDs can operate in more severe temperature and vibration environments compared to traditional, spinning-disk hard drives. Additionally, they draw much less power than a traditional hard disk.
Compared to other solid state storage mediums such as CompactFlash, SD cards, P2 cards, and Express Card storage, SSDs have much higher storage capacities. Their larger physical size can accommodate more memory chips.
Transcend SSDSound Devices tested the Transcend SSD drive model TS32GSSD25-M. This drive performed properly, as expected, and can support up to four tracks of WAV audio recorded at 24 bit/96 kHz. We anticipate that other PATA (parallel ATA drives) SSDs to perform similarly.Well its already been debunked that they draw much less power already once in this thread. Then at the end they make the statement that they anticipate other PATA SSD's (there are extremely few PATA SSD's (<12) total on the market). So assume they meant PATA IDE disks to perform similarly. In that case its true because the throughput of the audio is far less that what any of those drives can handle on a regular basis. Search for reviews on the Transcend drive they mentioned. Not real favorable.
AnandTech has done several articles and studies linked to hard drive reliability. Specifically with numbers of failure rates as well as manufacturer returns from both consumers and retailers.
I know how we all want to believe that SSD's are rock solid and outlast traditional HDD's but the truth is that in April of 2011 it's a myth. There is no data as of yet to put SSD's over the top of HDD's especially in the case of using one in a 7xx recorder. So far its all myth and marketing hype. Just because SSD's don't have moving parts DOES NOT mean that they don't have other weak links and failure points. At least we all know if a drive shits the bed you have a chance of recovering data from a HDD and no chance from a SSD.
Are there other reason's that lead you to believe that they are more reliable other than the 'no moving parts' argument?