The major advancement in storage technology that significantly increased data retrieval speed is the development of solid-state drives (SSDs). Unlike traditional hard disk drives (HDDs), which rely on spinning disks to read and write data, SSDs use flash memory to access information almost instantaneously. This results in far lower latency and significantly faster data transfer rates. The improved performance of SSDs enhances user experiences in applications ranging from operating systems to gaming, making them increasingly popular for both consumer and enterprise use.