News

posted on 04 June 2008 10:50

Super Talent has jumped into the 1.8-inch flash solid state drive (SSD) market with a new line of MasterDrive KX products aimed at the ultra-mobile PC and laptop upgrade market.

They are 5mm thick, have a micro-SATA interface and hold up to 120GB of data in their multi-level cell (MLC) chips.

Super Talent introduced lower-priced 2.5-inch SSDs in May and has now repeated its pricing stance in the 1.8-inch form factor area.

In recent days Intel, SanDisk and TDK have all introduced 1.8-inch form factor SSDs. However Super Talent has a capacity edge as maximum capacities from the other suppliers are limited: Intel - to 8GB; TDK - to 64GB; SanDisk - to 16GB.

It seems apparent that the days of the 1.8-inch hard disk drive are numbered.

Joe James, Super Talent's marketing director, said: "In terms of performance, power consumption, and shock and vibration resistance the MasterDrive KX is substantially better than hard drives. The MasterDrive KX is an excellent upgrade for laptop users looking for greater reliability or to accelerate bootup and load times."

The products read sequentially at 120MB/sec and write sequentially at 40MB/sec, a third of the read speed. Access time is 0.1ms.

The prices are $299 for 30GB, $449 for 60GB, and $679 for 120GB.
^{[Paul Roberts, news editor.]}