SSDs get smaller and faster

Now down to about the size of a paper clip

SanDisk (NASDAQ:SNDK)has just launched two new SSDs during Computex in Taiwan.

The first, the U100 is aimed at the thin & light notebook market and the second, the iSSD, is destined to go into tablets and similar goodies.

The U100 has a maximum capacity of 256GB and some impressive specs. It can read data a 450 MB/s and write them sequentially at 340 MB/sec.

The iSSD is even smaller. As you can see from the photo it is about the size of a paper clip. The exact dimensions are 16mm x 20mm x 1.85mm and the maximum capacity is 128GB. The read speed is still 450 MB/sec, but the write speed is a bit slower at 160 MB/sec. both drives feature a SATA III interface.

SanDisk differentiates its drives from those of the competition by designing its own controllers instead of buying third party off the shelf controllers that more or less fit the purpose of the drive. By designing its own controllers SanDisk can tune the controller to achieve the maximum throughput.

Although SanDisk does not mention prices in its press release, we should expect the small SSDs to compete heavily with mechanical drives – as they are very difficult and expensive to miniaturise.S|A

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