SanDisk beefed up its place in the solid-state drive market with a pair of new offerings introduced Monday. The SanDisk SSD Plus is a 2.5-inch entry-level drive, while the SanDisk Ultra II mSATA SSD is a new form factor for the SanDisk Ultra II SSD product line. The two new products were unveiled at the 2015 International Consumer Electronics Show in Las Vegas.
The SanDisk SSD Plus targets laptop and desktop PC users who want improved system performance, the San Jose, California-based company said. The SanDisk Ultra II mSATA SSD is for laptop and tablet users looking to increase the capacity and overall performance of their mSATA-enabled systems.
Faster and Cheaper
The new drives are designed to bring all the benefits of flash memory technology, including faster speeds, extended battery life and upgraded systems, to users at an affordable price, according to SanDisk.
“Today’s consumers are constantly looking for faster, better-performing computing devices that provide data in an instant, but they don’t necessarily want to replace their entire system in order to get that boost,” said Philippe Willams, SanDisk’s director of retail storage. “We are focused on providing SSD solutions that give users improved performance on their existing PC, laptop or tablet with faster speeds, greater durability and higher capacities, all with a simple upgrade.”
With speeds of up to 23 times the performance of a typical hard drive, the SanDisk SSD Plus will deliver faster boot and load times as well as better overall system performance, which could take away the need to replace a slow laptop or desktop PC. The SanDisk Ultra II mSATA SSD delivers read speeds of up to 550 MB/s, while adding up to 512 GB of capacity.
The SanDisk SSD Plus comes in capacities of 120GB (costing $ 69.99) and 240 GB ($ 109.99). The Ultra II mSATA SSD will be sold in select regions in capacities of 128 GB ($ 73.99), 256 GB ($ 115.99) and 512 GB ($ 220.99).
When we reached Doug Freedman, managing director of U.S. semiconductor research for San Francisco-based RBC Capital Markets, he said that the prices and capacities of the new products were both noteworthy.
“The list prices are impressive and show that NAND solutions continue to expand the market they serve as the costs continue to decline,” Freedman said. Meanwhile, “the performance and densities are increasing.”
Both drives are scheduled for release in the first quarter of 2015.
New Flash Drive
SanDisk also used CES to announce the release of SanDisk Ultra Dual USB Drive 3.0, a USB flash drive that includes both a micro-USB and a high-speed USB 3.0 connector for speedier file transfers between On The Go-enabled Android devices, PCs and Macs.
The drive enables mobile users to transfer files faster, as well as free up space on their smartphones and tablets. It connects via micro-USB to a compatible Android device and gives users up to 64 GB of extra storage.
The Ultra Dual USB Drive 3.0 has a longer micro-USB connector to accommodate device cases or port covers. It also offers USB 3.0 performance at up to 130MB/s from the drive to the computer, allowing users to quickly transfer and back up photos, videos and other files originally taken with a smartphone.
It will come in 16 GB to 64 GB capacities, with retail prices of $ 22.99 to $ 64.99, respectively.
