SanDisk unveils superfast solid-state drive family

Tony Austin
Friday, 09 January 2009 11:24

Opinion and Analysis

"These existing WinXP notebooks can be upgraded to a 60GB SSD for USD$149," continued SanDisk's Rich Heye, "resulting in a system that frequently outperforms a new notebook with a HDD, thereby delaying the need for large capital purchases.”

“Web-Feet Research has tested the replacement of the HDDs in three year old Notebooks with SSDs and has found an improvement in boot times, application loading and general user responsiveness that, in many cases, exceeds what a new notebook with an HDD can deliver,” said Alan Niebel, Principal at Web-feet Research.

“In these challenging economic times," continued Niebel, "IT managers are looking for ways to reduce IT spending without adversely affecting their user base and the SanDisk G3 SSD solution extends the notebook replacement cycle an additional two years at minimal cost.”

The SanDiskG3 SSDs will be available to this market in mid 2009, in a 2.5” PATA configuration expressly for this purpose.

If you've slipped a tad behind in your recognition of acronyms, PATA stands for Parallel ATA, which is the new term for what a mere few years ago was named SATA (Serial ATA).

In addition, the SanDisk G3 SSDs will be available for do-it-yourself (DIY) enthusiasts. “An SSD upgrade improves the user experience like nothing else you can do to a computer.” Heye concluded.

SanDisk’s flash technology is produced at fabrication plants in Yokkaichi, Japan, where SanDisk and its partner, Toshiba Corporation, share the output. The SSD controller and firmware were designed by SanDisk expressly for the G3 SSD.

You can find out more about flash memory technology, and the significant role that it plays inside laptops and other consumer electronic devices, from SanDisk’s SSD Academy.

There's a webcast of the SanDisk CES 2009 press conference at www.sandisk.com/ceswebcast