SanDisk faster netbook solid state disk drives

[dhilipkumar]

SanDisk releases faster netbook solid state disk drives

SanDisk's unveiled the new drives at Computex, in Taipei.  SanDisk, however, said their new pSSD P2 and pSSD S2 drives use a new technology called nCache, which instead of DRAM, uses nonvolatile NAND flash memory as a cache to store writes more efficiently before laying them down on the drive.

SanDisk's nCache is based on NAND flash and not DRAM, Windows will not force it to flush to the disk, allowing it to hold onto the data for five, 10 or as long as 30 minutes, depending on when the drive's controller detects idle time so as to not disrupt user I/O.

The new SSDs come in 8GB, 16GB, 32GB and 64GB capacities, with up to 320MB of cache. Barnetson said the 16GB version will have an suggested retail price of about $40 and the 32GB drive will run between $60 and $70.

"Our tests have shown SanDisk second generation pSSD equipped with nCache performing significantly better than a 5,400 RPM HDD, providing Ubuntu users with the speed and stability that they need."