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(Credit: Lexar)

The market for consumer solid-state drives just got slightly more diverse.

Lexar Media announced Monday its latest line of solid-state drives (SSDs), the Crucial M225 SSDs. Lexar has been a known flash storage device maker, while Crucial is a known brand for computer system memory, or RAM.

The M225 SSDs come in three versions, 256GB, 128GB, and 64GB, and offer throughput speeds up to 250MBps in reading and 200MBps in writing.

These drives utilize a SATA 2.0 (3Gbps) interface and feature MLC NAND flash components housed in an industry-standard 2.5-inch drive enclosure. This means they are compatible with all laptops and applications where traditional 2.5 SATA hard drives are used.

For non-traditional applications, together with the M225 SSDs, Lexar also introduced the $30 Crucial SK01 External Drive Storage Kit that turns an M225 SSD into a portable storage device via a USB port or makes it compatible with desktop computers. The kit includes a 2.5-inch USB 2.0 external enclosure, a 3.5-inch SATA 3Gbps hot-swappable drive bay, and a 5.25-inch drive bay bracket.

The new Crucial SSDs are available now and cost $600 for the 256GB version, $330 for the 128GB version, and $170 for the 64GB version. All these drives and the external kit come with a five-year limited warranty.

While it's now easy to get a desktop with a terabyte or more of storage, it's still pretty hard to find a laptop with even 300GB. That's why I am very impressed with the Portege R600-ST4203 laptop that Toshiba announced Thursday.

The Portege R600-ST4203 is one of world's first laptops with 512GB of storage and it's definitely the first with that much storage in the form of a solid-state drive (SSD). Until now, most SSDs for laptops have remained in the 32GB to 128GB capacity range.

A Protege R600 laptop from Toshiba.

(Credit: CNET)

The Portege R600-ST4203 is the newest model in Toshiba's Portege R600 ultraportable series. It weighs just 2.4 pounds and is only 0.77 inch thin, which is about as thin as the Macbook Air. It has a durable, shock-absorbing chassis, and a 12.1-inch wide-screen LED display. The laptop includes Windows Vista Business and is powered by Intel's Ultra Low Voltage Core 2 Duo SU94005 processor.

The SSD used in the Portege R600-ST4203 is Toshiba's newest second-generation SSD, which features SATA standard and multilevel cell (MLC) NAND flash memory technology. The MLC NAND technology helps increase the density of the SSD, thus allowing more storage space. However, this means it is not the fastest SSD you can find. High-speed SSDs normally use single-level cell NANDs, like the Intel X-25E Extreme does. Nonetheless, Toshiba's 512GB SSD will likely be faster than traditional 5400rpm hard drives found in most notebooks.

Toshiba expects the new machine to provide customers with an enhanced level of protection, portability, reliability, and fast data access. The company claims that the adoption of this 512GB solid-state technology enables the user to enjoy shorter boot times, faster application loading, and access times that are 300 percent faster than 128GB or smaller SSDs.

While those claims still need to be verified, one thing is for sure: the new laptop isn't cheap. It's going to be available for purchase early next month exclusively on Toshiba's Web site for an estimated $3,500.

You've heard that solid-state drives, such as the Intel X-25M, are significantly faster than traditional hard drives. However, they are still nowhere near as fast as the DDRdrive X1 introduced on Monday.

The DDRdrive X1

(Credit: DDRdrive)

This is the first storage device I've seen that comes in the form of an expansion card. At a glance, it looks very much like a video card or a modem and it is compatible with any PCIe expansion slot.

Unlike other SSDs that use a flash memory called NAND, the X1 uses two types of memory: NAND and DRAM. The latter is commonly used as system memory. DRAM (or RAM in generally) is very fast; however, information stored in RAM is volatile and is destroyed when the computer is powered off. This is where the NAND part of the X1 comes into play by retaining the information when the computer is not in operation.

The drive has the same amount of DRAM as it has of NAND, which is only 4GB. This combination is designed for optimum input/output operations per second and, according to DDRdrive, the X1 indeed offers superfast performance and can be backed up or restored in its entirety in less than a minute.

The fact that you can get thumbdrives with 8GB or more might seem to lessen the appeal of the 4GB X1. The drive, however, is made for special applications such as databases or those that require performance above all else.

Somebody must really need the performance to be willing to buy the X1. With a price of almost $1,500, it has by far the highest dollar-per-gigabyte figure I've seen: more than $370. In the case of the Intel X-25M or most other SSDs currently on the market, you'll pay only about $4 per gigabyte of storage.

To DDRdrive's credit, the X1 does come with a five-year warranty and is compatible with all 32-bit and 64-bit Windows versions.

(Credit: Transcend)

Transcend, the company that introduced a solid-state-drive-based external drive the other day, on Thursday unveiled its 192GB Solid State Drive.

Despite the mundane name, the new drive is equipped with NAND flash memory and offers up to 192GB of storage, a fast sustained read performance of up to 150MBps, and up to a 90MBps write performance, according to Transcend. Its latency is rated at 0.2 milliseconds, which is practically instant.

It's a 2.5-inch SATAII drive--currently the most popular interface--and is compatible with most notebook computers or any other devices that use this storage standard.

Transcend's new SSD also has integrated Error Correction Code technology, mostly found in memory for servers, that helps ensure accurate data transfer and built-in wear leveling technology designed to give the drive long storage lifespan and reliability.

The drive will be available later next week with capacities ranging from 8GB to 192GB. It also comes in an IDE version. All drives come with a two-year warranty. The 192GB SATAII version is estimated to cost $454.

(Credit: Transcend)

If you like your thumb drive for the durability, you'll like what Transcend introduced on Monday. It's a new breed of compact external storage device that's based on 1.8-inch solid state drives (SSDs), the SSD18M.

Unlike traditional external storage devices that are based on hard-disk drives, the SSD18M is made of reliable NAND flash memory that contains no moving parts. This eliminates the possibility of mechanical failure due to shock or vibration and also provides substantial weight savings and reduced power consumption.

The new drive features both both eSATA and USB2.0 interface options. This means when portability is not required, people can use the eSATA interface, which requires a separate power adapter, to take advantage of the high throughput speeds of up to 90Mbps in reading and 50Mbps writing.

The SSD18M sports a stylish gloss diamond pattern fascia and measures only 3.1 inches by 1.2 inches by .5 inch and weighs merely 1.8 ounces. It comes in 32GB, 64GB, and 128GB capacities.

Transcend backs the new drive with a two-year warranty and a comprehensive global service network. The SSD18M is available for purchase later this week and costs $285 for the 128GB version. The 64GB and 32GB versions cost $169 and $99, respectively.

(Credit: Super Talent Technology)

If you own a Windows-based Asus S101 Eee PC and are running out of storage space, there's now another choice of upgrade.

Super Talent Technology (STT) announced Wednesday that it now offers a new solid-state drive (SSD) for the Netbook with capacities up to 64GB.

While 64GB doesn't sound a lot compared to hundreds of gigabytes found in new laptops or desktops, that's a lot for a Netbook. The Windows model of the S101 originally comes with only 16GB.

According to STT, the new SSD features a SATA Mini PCIe interface and delivers up to 90 MB/sec max sequential read speeds and up to 55 MB/sec write speeds.

The company says the new SSD has been rigorously tested both in performance and functionality to ensure it's compatible with the Asus S101. The drive is available immediately and costs $169 for the 64GB version. It also comes in 32GB and 16GB versions, which are priced accordingly.

(Credit: Transcend)

I'm not sure this will help stop the downturn in the NAND flash memory market, but Transcend on Tuesday joined the league of solid-state-drive makers and introduced its new 128GB high-speed 2.5-inch drive.

The new drive features the SATA-II interface and Transcend's Multi-level cell flash memory chip. This combination allows it to offer sustained read/write speeds of up to 145MB/92MB per second, about 40 percent faster than high-speed regular 2.5-inch SATA hard drives.

Like other SSDs, the new SSD from Transcend has very low 0.2ms latency that would potentially increase the performance of software applications, as well as the overall system.

The new Transcend SSD is available in capacities ranging from 8GB to 128GB, with the 128GB version costing only $379, a very good deal. You can also find Transcend's SSDs that support the older IDE interface with capacities ranging from 8GB to 64GB.

All Transcend's SSDs are covered with a two-year warranty along with the company's worldwide support.

The 1-inch SSD.

(Credit: Super Talant Techonology)

Solid-state drives aren't always faster than regular hard drives, but they sure can be tinier.

The smallest regular hard drives are the 1.8 inchers that Toshiba has been making for ultracompact laptops. On Wednesday, Super Talent Technology announced two SSDs that come in a significantly smaller form factor: .85 inch and 1 inch.

The new SSDs use Intel Z-P140 NAND Flash-based SSD technology and employ the older parallel ATA (PATA/IDE) interface, as opposed to the current and popular SATA interface used in regular-size SSDs. Both offer rather modest read and write speeds of 40 megabytes per second and 30MBps, respectively. They are also available in very small storage capacities. The .85 inchers offer 2GB and 4GB, while the 1 inchers offer 2GB, 4GB, and 8GB sizes.

Thanks to their tiny physical form and limited storage space and speed, these new drives are only suitable for ultramobile PCs and digital-multimedia broadcasting devices.

It's unclear how much these new SSDs cost. Chances are, however, that you won't be able to purchase them at all; rather, they will be available to OEM manufacturers only.

Not long after releasing the X-25M solid-state drive for general consumers, Intel announced on Wednesday its highest-performing SSD for servers.

The new drive, dubbed X-25E Extreme, shares a lot of similarities with the X-25M, including the 2.5-inch chassis, SATA interface, and 10-channel NAND architecture with Native Command Queuing. However, it features 50nm single-level cell NAND flash memory technology instead of multicell level NAND found in the X-25M.

The result, according to Intel, is that the new X25-E increases server, workstation, and storage system performance by up to 100 times over traditional hard-disk drives when measured in input/output per second (IOPS) metrics. The Intel X-25E offer 35,000 IOPS random read and 3,300 IOPS random write and 75 microsecond read latency. In real-world use, this allows the drive to achieve up to 250 megabytes per second sequential read speed and up to 170 MBps sequential write speed.

The X25-E, currently only available in a 32GB version, is capable of writing up to 4,000TB of data over a three-year period, or 3.7TB per day.

Unlike the X-25M, which can be found in either 2.5-inch or 1.8-inch physical sizes, the high-end X25E is available only in a 2.5-inch size and costs $695. The 64GB version of the drive is expected to be available in first quarter of 2009.