Linear power supplies
One advantage of linear power supplies may be familiarity, because they have been available for many years. They are known to be relatively noise-free and reasonably reliable. They are generally easy to design and fairly inexpensive to manufacture.

Because of the large transformers required, linear power supplies are generally heavy, which may be either an advantage or a disadvantage, depending on the need to balance weight distribution in a given application. As a general rule of thumb, a 16V-output linear power supply weighs about one pound per ampere. A possible disadvantage of linear power supplies relates to the power transistor used to regulate the load. Because the power transistor operates in its linear region, and all the output current must pass through it, it requires large heat sinks to dissipate energy loss. (Recall that the power transistor is in series with the load and acts as a variable resistor.) Except in rare instances where heat is wanted to warm interior space, the inefficiency of linear power supplies 50% has to be considered a disadvantage.

Switching power supplies
Although switching power supplies have been available for a number of years, higher production costs, compared to linear power supplies, have limited their use in some applications. Early switching power supplies used discrete components to control pulse width, and transistors instead of MOSFETs as main switch components. As a result, the disadvantages of switching power supplies once included uneven reliability and radiated EMI (electrical noise). Although they were known to be noisy, unreliable and difficult to mass produce, switching power supplies had the advantage of being lighter and smaller than their linear counterparts. In the last few years, big improvements in PWM and MOSFET design have been made. Today, when all design considerations have been taken into account, switching power supplies are highly reliable and virtually noise-free. Production costs have come down because application-specific components are being designed for use in switching power supplies

More on Power Supplies:

• Transformers Power Supplies
• Switching Transformers
• Linear Supplies
• Switching Supplies
• Advantages and Disadvantages