SanDisk debuts 16GB SSD for small notebooks

SanDisk has announced a line of flash memory-based solid-state drives (SSDs) that it says are specifically designed for Ultra Low-Cost PCs (ULCPC) or "netbooks" priced between $250 and $350. The pSSD is available in 4-, 8- and 16-GB capacities, all of which boast a streaming read speed of 39 megabytes per second (MB/s)2 and a streaming write performance of 17MB/s. The new models are being shown at Computex Taipei, where SanDisk is exhibiting at Booth M320 in the Nangang Exhibition Hall. The drives are built using both denser Multi-Level Cell (MLC) and faster Single-Level Cell (SLC) flash memory. Pricing has not been announced.

The ULCPC category includes devices that exclusively use solid state drives, rather than conventional hard disk drives. These include current Eee PCs, which cost as little as $300 with older Celeron processors, 2GB of flash storage, 7-inch screens, and Linux. Many of these devices will be built around the Atom ultra-mobile processor line as well as SSDs offered by SanDisk as well as Intel itself.