SanDisk release new SSDs

Unsurprisingly, it is the turn of SanDisk to release a new line of Solid-State-Drives. Interestingly though, it is selling them directly to consumers rather than the normal route to manufacturers and retailers.

SanDisk’s Ultra SSD line has been designed to place hard drives in older systems and thereby increase the performance, duability and lifespan of existing laptops and desktops. They are not there to give you the ultimate disk performance.

As such, the Ultra SSD line uses SATA 2.0 specification, and can manage a read rate of up to 280MB/sec and a write rate of up to 270 MB/sec.

The technology is based on multi-level cell NAND flash memory, and has a mean time between failure rate of up to 1 million hours. SanDisk claim that replacing an existing hard drive with an SSD is more cost effective than purchasing a new computer, however it is still not nearly as cheap as a conventional hard-drive. Lots of people will say that if you are going to spend £100+ on a new SSD you might as well spend £200+ on a faster computer, as then all performance aspects will be improved.

The drives are available in 60GB, 120GB and 240GB capacities and initial pricing seems to be $129.99, $219.99 and $449.99 respectively.