Well I just had those problems with my laptop, which is no more.
It would get burning hot after being on for like 5 hours, while my roommate's computer worked perfectly after being on for months at a time, but his was a desktop, so I guess that is to be expected. My analogy was just comparing the devices that have to spin to read data to those that don't. You were right in thinking I was trying to just say hard drives ARE old technology.
So you don't think there will be any replacement for a hard drive any time soon? What do you think the limit to storage capacity is on a hard drive?