Coming just two months after SanDisk introduced a 1.8-inch SSD for ultra-portable laptops, the 2.5-inch SSD is now available to PC manufacturers as a drop-in replacement for hard disk drives. Previously, large capacity flash-based drives had been used primarily by the military, aerospace and telecom industries, which demanded high performance and reliability under challenging environmental conditions. But now the declining cost of NAND flash memory has made SSD a viable and economically attractive alternative to existing technologies in a wider variety of applications, including mobile PCs aimed at enterprise and consumer users.
Another advantage of SanDisk SSD is its extremely low power consumption rate compared to the hard disk drive: 0.4 watt during active operation versus 1.0 watt. This is particularly important to extend the battery life for the benefit of enterprise road warriors.
The vast majority of laptop computers manufactured today use 2.5-inch hard disk drives. The SanDisk 2.5-inch SSD fits in the same internal slot as 2.5-inch hard disks, so laptop manufacturers can switch to the SanDisk SSD without altering their hardware designs.
The 32 GB, 2.5-inch SanDisk SSD is available now to computer manufacturers, with initial pricing of $350 for large volume orders.