News

posted on 05 August 2008 10:47

Micron is introducing faster and higher capacity flash solid state drives (SSD) for notebook and server use.

The RealSSD P200 is for servers and the RealSSD C200 model is for notebook use. The company is not offering a storage array flash drive.

Dean Klein, memory system development VP at Micron, said: “We are seeing SSD interest in a variety of applications where historically hard disk drives have reigned. For many, the most logical place is in notebook computers, but there is incredible value for SSDs in enterprise server systems. ... With our C200 products, we are providing a balanced price to performance solution specifically designed for notebook applications by utilizing MLC NAND technology and highly optimized NAND management algorithms.”

Server flash drive

The RealSSD P200 is a server-focussed single-level cell (SLC) SSD with a 16GB - 128GB capacity range inside a 2.5-inch form factor package. Micron says it  provides the industry’s fastest 3Gbit/s SATA II-based sequential read and write speed of up to a maximum of 250MB/sec.

Micron claims that the P200 provides improved wear-leveling capabilities, offering a mean time between failure (MTBF) rate of approximately two million hours compared to 300,000 to 500,000 MTBF of an HDD. 

It adds that the P200 is more than 10 times faster at accessing transactional data when compared to a typical enterprise HDD, achieves sub-millisecond latency while a typical enterprise HDD has an average latency of approximately eight milliseconds, and consumes about one-tenth the power of a typical data center hard drive.

Notebook flash drive

The RealSSD C200 is a multi-level cell (MLC) NAND flash design with a capacity range from 32GB to 128GB in a 1.8-inch form factor and up to 256GB in a 2.5-inch form factor. It utilizes two bits per cell. Again using a SATA-II interface, it has a read speed of up to 250 MB/sec and a write speed of up to 100 MB/sec.

Competing Super Talent MLC and SLC flash notebook drives offer 120MB/sec read and 120MB/sec write speeds.

Micron says its new product will provide improved boot and application load times and lower power consumption for smaller form factor notebook designs.

Availability

The RealSSD P200 and C200 drives are sampling now with mass production expected in the fourth quarter of 2008. Micron’s Lexar Media subsidiary plans to release RealSSD product to consumers in the fourth quarter of 2008.

^{[Martin Edwards, news writer.]}