Many retail, hospitality and restaurant services require a reliable point-of-sale system to operate at optimal capacity. Without a fully functioning POS system, clerks will be unable to quickly process transactions and provide consumers with a fast and convenient experience. A recent study found that 78 percent of retailers described their POS network as critical to ensuring customer satisfaction, Apparel Magazine reported. POS systems oversee an integral component of the consumer-business transaction and have the capacity to either guide it effortlessly to completion or disrupt the process entirely.

"[T]hese applications are complex – and if not managed properly, run the risk of failure," the source cautioned. "When POS performance fails due to faulty system components – whether hardware, software, or network elements – the results can include at-the-register slowdowns, higher costs and lost sales. Let's also not forget about angry customers."

Some of the most common bottlenecks that a networked system may encounter are related to data storage device performance. While hard disk drives can offer a decent amount of storage capacity at a relatively low cost, their ability to read and write data is inhibited by their internal moving parts. Magnetic platters can only spin so fast, meaning that there is a ceiling to how quickly users will be able to access important files or applications. For consumers, this lag is an inconvenience; in a retail or service industry environment, any delays can be costly. Customers may cancel their transactions, lodge a complaint or take their business to a competitor. 

Ensuring operational performance with SSD technology
To ensure that consumers are provided a fast and convenient shopping experience, businesses can deploy high-performance solid state technology. SSD drives can be integrated with legacy POS systems, providing a noticeable boost in performance. According to a report issued by J2 Retail Systems, SSDs can provide data read/write speeds that are as much as 400 percent faster than HDDs. In addition, because of the technology's physiology, SSD drives are not prone to latency issues when switching from sequential to random reads. HDDs, on the other hand, operate slower under these conditions because their read heads need to reposition themselves to access data.

Another benefit SSDs provide retailers is longevity. Overhead costs are a major burden for any operation and needing to replace hardware on a regular basis can drain corporate coffers. According to J2 Retail Systems, the mean time between failures for an SSD is anywhere between 114 and 456 years. In addition, component degeneration is unlikely to occur at the same rate as an HDD with its numerous moving parts. Above all else, POS systems need to be reliable and fast, two features that SSD drives can provide.