Posted on Tuesday, June 03 2008 @ 18:04 CEST by Thomas De Maesschalck
SanDisk unveiled a new line of pSSD (Parallel ATA solid state drive) products designed for low-cost netbooks in the $250 to $350 price range. The drives will be available in 4GB, 8GB and 16GB capacities but the transfer speeds will be rather slow. SanDisk says these new solid state drives will have a read speed of 39MB/s and a write speed of 17MB/s.
SanDisk’s pSSD solid state drives, which are expected to be available starting in August, are built using the company’s reliable Multi-Level Cell (MLC) and Single-Level Cell (SLC) flash memory. This technology is produced at fabrication plants in Yokkaichi, Japan, where SanDisk and its partner, Toshiba Corporation, share the output. The two companies have co-developed many of the designs and technologies in NAND flash.
ULCPCs are inexpensive handheld laptops – smaller than a conventional notebook computer but larger than a mobile “smart” phone – that are easy to carry and cost in the range of $250 to $350. They enable consumers to browse the Internet on the go, with a user interface that replicates that of larger PCs. Originally, ULCPCs were developed as low-cost computing solutions for school children in developing nations. But the diminutive devices have caught on with adults, and now manufacturers are rolling out devices that are designed for general consumer use. Other names for these include Ultra-Mobile PC (UMPC) and Mobile Internet Device (MID).
The pSSD drives will be available in August. SanDisk didn't share pricing information but as these units will go into $250-350 Ultra Low-Cost PCs (ULCPC) they should be pretty cheap.
