Sandisk unveils 32GB flash-based laptop storage

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Sandisk has launched its new flash-based 32GB, 2.5-inch hard drive aimed as a replacement for traditional hard disks in laptops.

The disks have started shipping to notebook manufacturers and the company said the new disks fit a standard 2.5-inch drive bay so avoiding the need to change hardware designs.

As reported in IT PRO, the company launched a 1.8-inch solid state disk two months ago aimed at enterprise users. Sister publication MacUser reported recently that Apple is planning to use solid state drives, rather than a normal hard disk drive, in a new 'subnotebook' ultra-portable computer.

Sandisk said that the move over to solid state disks (SSD) would result in data transfer speeds up to 100 times faster on mechanical hard disks as well as lower power consumption and cost per gigabyte.

"Per-gigabyte price of SSD storage will come down and capacity will go up," said Amos Marom, vice president and general manager of the Computing Systems division at SanDisk. "PC manufacturers and consumers will find it easier and easier to move away from rotating hard disks to the superior experience of SSDs."

The company said that the new disk had a sustained read rate of 67Mbit/sec and average file access speeds of 0.11 milliseconds and this meant that a laptop with the new disk drive could boot Windows Vista Enterprise in 30 seconds, compared with a normal boot-up time of 48 seconds for a traditional disk drive.

Analysts said that there were several reasons why computer users and manufacturers should consider SSDs as prices become more affordable.

"Gartner research shows hard disk failure is tied for first place with motherboard failure as the leading cause of overall hardware failure in notebooks, with each accounting for 25 to 45 per cent of the total," said Joseph Unsworth, principal research analyst for flash memory at Gartner.

"The higher reliability of SSDs lowers total cost of ownership, and could be a driver for adoption of SSDs."

Unsworth said that the analyst firm predicted that global consumption of SSDs in consumer and business notebooks would rise from 4m units in 2007 to 32m units in 2010.

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