SanDisk kicked off Computex with a trio of flash-based storage devices made for everything from phones through to ultraportables. The SanDisk SSD line gets the U100, a raw SATA III card that gives thin-and-light notebooks speed closer to desktop SSDs. They can read and write at high peak speeds of 450MB and 340MB per second respectively and yet can fit in anything from a half-sized, slim SSD card through to 2.5-inch, enclosed designs meant for conventional notebooks.
The i100 iSSD is the latest generation of SanDisk’s all-in-one SSD chip and writes more slowly, at 160MB per second, but has the same 450MB per second reads, SATA III connection, and fits into a much smaller size friendlier to tablets.
Both the i100 and U100 come in capacities of as little as 8GB and scale up in powers of two to 128GB on the i100 and 256GB for the U100. Test samples are already headed to manufacturers now, and mass production is slated for the summer.
At the smallest end, SanDisk’s iNAND line has been upgraded with the Extreme, a series intended for relatively very fast performance in phones and tablets where size is the tradeoff. Its 80MB per second reads and 50MB writes are slower relative to larger drives but enough to give a speed advantage to using a faster interface like USB 3.0 or to recording 3D and HD video. With chips as small as 12x16mm and just 1mm thick, the chips are even smaller than the i100 and can fit in tighter spaces.
Just 16GB and 64GB versions of the iNAND Extreme will be sampling only in the summer and don’t have a ship date.
