Simple way to detect whether a drive is a spindle or not.

ssd check

#!/bin/bash

# pass the drive argument to this script when calling i.e. ./script.sh sda
# see: http://www.mjmwired.net/kernel/Documentation/block/queue-sysfs.txt for other parameters
if [ "$( find /sys -name rotational | grep $0 | xargs cat )" ]; then
  echo "its a spinny!"
else
  echo "its an SSD or Flash!"
fi