X

Netbook solid-state drives expand to 64GB and beyond

Toshiba is adding a 64GB solid-state drive to its Netbook offering, HP's upscale Netbook has an even larger drive.

Brooke Crothers Former CNET contributor
Brooke Crothers writes about mobile computer systems, including laptops, tablets, smartphones: how they define the computing experience and the hardware that makes them tick. He has served as an editor at large at CNET News and a contributing reporter to The New York Times' Bits and Technology sections. His interest in things small began when living in Tokyo in a very small apartment for a very long time.
See full bio
Brooke Crothers

Toshiba hasn't exactly been on the cutting edge of the Netbook phenomenon but the Japanese company is taking the lead in moving solid-state drive storage in these tiny laptops to the next level.

Toshiba is adding a 64GB solid-state drive to its NB100 Netbook offering, in addition to the current 160GB hard disk drive option.

While Sony's Vaio P series will be available with SSD options up to 128GB SSD, it's problematic whether Sony's tiny laptop qualifies as a Netbook, which are defined by price as well as size. The Vaio P with a 64GB SSD is $1,199. With the 128GB option this jumps to $1,499. Pricing that's way out of the range of Netbooks, which typically top off at about $500.

And HP offers an 80GB SSD option on the pricey Mini 2140 Netbook (which ranges up to $779). Though pricing is not available for the Mini 2140 80GB SSD option on HP's Web site, an 80GB SSD is priced at $520 as a configuration option on the Pavilion dv3z series notebook

Toshiba is adding a 64GB solid-state drive option to its NB100 Netbook
Toshiba is adding a 64GB solid-state drive option to its NB100 Netbook Toshiba

The Toshiba NB100--which is not currently marketed in the U.S.--features Windows Vista Home Premium, an Intel Atom N270 processor (1.6GHz), Intel 945GSE graphics, 1GB of memory, an 8.9-inch display, a multimedia card slot (SD), three USB 2.0 ports, 802.11b/g Wi-Fi, Ethernet, Bluetooth, and a Webcam.

Pricing was not disclosed though current models sold with a 160GB hard disk drive are priced typically between $450 and $500.