I speculated a year and half ago that AWS would add SSD, but I was wrong and AWS added HPC instead.
GigaOm reports on CloudSigma adding SSD support.
CloudSigma adds SSDs to its public cloud
Cloud provider CloudSigma has become the first to add solid-state-drive storage to its public cloud computing service. SSDs (aka flash memory) are well known for their ability to significantly increase storage I/O performance and decrease power consumption when compared with hard disk drives, but until recently they have been too expensive for consideration in most data centers that aren’t backed by serious computing needs and deep pockets. That’s starting to change with the advent of new companies promising ever-lower prices on enterprise-grade flash storage, but making flash available as a service to cloud customers is still relatively unheard of.
There is mention of the lower power consumption, but the key is performance. BTW, part of why I like my MacBook Air is its 256GB SSD that makes my machine outperform my other laptops.
The SSD is meant for high performance areas of the cloud.
At this point, CloudSigma is targeting its flash offering at tiered storage environments in which companies place “hot” data or data that requires high I/O throughput on flash, while keeping less-performance-intensive data and backup operations on hard disks.