SanDisk Claims World's Fastest MLC SSD Family

The company's third generation SSDs provide higher performance

SanDisk, one of the leading vendors of Flash-based storage devices, has announced today the introduction of its third-generation family of solid-state drives (SSDs). The new SanDisk G3 Series has been designed using a multi-level cell NAND flash memory technology, which enables higher levels of performance in the SSD industry. The company also designed its new G3 SSDs to provide a competitive price/value ratio, offering performance at a more affordable price tag.

“SanDisk’s G3 SSD has met the demand of a 120GB SSD at less than $250 with an exceptional user experience,” said Rich Heye, Sr. VP and general manager, Solid State Drives (SSD) business unit, SanDisk. “Three key features developed by SanDisk enable this new design: a new SSD algorithm called ExtremeFFS allows random write performance to potentially improve by as much as 100 times over conventional algorithms; reliable 43nm multi-level cell (MLC) all bit-line (ABL) NAND flash; and SanDisk’s new SSD controller, which ties together the NAND and the algorithm.”

The company's new lineup of solid state drives can be used as drop-in replacements for traditional hard disk drives, featured in some of the current portable computer systems. Part of the new family of SSDs, SanDisk announced the SSD C25-G3 and SSD C18-G3 models, providing a high-performance storage solution in a standard 2.5-inch and 1.8-inch form factor, respectively. Both models have been designed with a SATA II interface and are expected to provide capacities of 60, 120 and 240GB, with MRSPs rated at $149, $249 and $499, respectively.

According to the company, its new G3 SSDs can deliver a performance ratio of up to five times faster than that of a fast 7200RPM HDD, with sequential read and write speeds of 200MB/s and 140MB/s, respectively. Also, due to its Long-term Data Endurance (LDE), the 240GB version allows for 160 terrabytes to be written, during the drive's lifetime.