SanDisk on Thursday unveiled the third generation of its Solid State Drive lineup with an emphasis on making them available to the public. The company promises drives that are both inexpensive and fast through a combination of cheap multi-level cell (MLC) memory, a new memory controller and its ExtremeFFS file system. Even in flash memory's historically weak performance with sequential data, SanDisk estimates 200MB per second reads and 140MB per second writes. That's about five times faster than a 7,200RPM hard drive, the company believes.

The memory maker also explicitly claims to have overcome the short lifespan of MLC and sees any of the SSDs lasting for about 100 years of typical use.

Versions will be available by mid-2009 in typical 2.5-inch notebook and 1.8-inch ultraportable sizes for systems using a SATA I or II interface; prices will be the same at either physical size with a 60GB selling for $149, a 120GB version for $249 and a 240GB disk selling for $499. PATA versions will also be available for workplaces and legacy users hoping to preserve old systems.