Not only has SanDisk announced a pair of new SSD families, one targeting consumers and one targeting OEM's, but the company has also splashed out and bought a company called FlashSoft that makes enterprise level SSD caching software, as well as teaming up with Diskeeper to further help improve SSD performance. If anyone thought that SanDisk was taking the SSD market lightly, then this ought to make them change their minds.SanDisk's Ultra SSDs were getting a bit long in the tooth compared to competing solutions, due to its older SSD controller and SATA 3Gbps interface. The new Extreme series fixes all this in a flash (pun intended) thanks to what appears to be yet another SandForce powered SSD, although SanDisk didn't bother to say. Even so, we're looking at sequential read speeds of up to 550MB/s for the 120 and 240GB SKUs with the 480GB SKU being slightly slower at up to 540MB/s. Sequential write speed is rated at up to 510MB/s for the 120GB model, 520MB/s for the 240GB model and finally a fairly disappointing 460MB/s for the 480GB model. Pricing start at US$199.99 for 120GB, with 240GB going for US$399.99 and finally 480GB for US$749.99.
The X100 series is SanDisk's new OEM product range which consists of several new models ranging from 32 to 512GB in size with sequential read speeds of up to 500MB/s and write speeds of up to 420MB/s. These drives are clearly using a different controller, but again SanDisk doesn't provide any details. What is interesting here though is that SanDisk is offering 2.5-inch drives at 9.5mm and 7mm, as well as mSATA SKUs and even the option to have a custom form factor made.
On the software side SanDisk has acquired FlashSoft, a company that makes some rather interesting SSD caching software for servers. Unlike your average consumer PC SSD caching, FlashSoft's solutions require a minimum of 8GB of SSD storage space and can go all the way up to 1TB. Its software is compatible with Linux and Windows Server 2008 R2 as well as various virtualization environments like Microsoft's Hyper-V and VMware.Finally SanDisk and Diskeeper have announced a strategic partnership to improve the performance of Ultrabooks once again with the help of Diskeeper's ExpressCache SSD caching software. This is the same solution used by Samsung in its Series 7 notebooks, albeit Samsung has gone for fairly small 8GB SSD's for the caching, although the software actually supports SSD's as small as 4GB, unlike Intel's Smart Response that needs at least 20GB.It looks like Samsung is going to be busy shifting SSDs and SSD related products this year to a wide range of customers, as apparently no market is off limits for one of the major flash memory forces. The big question is if SanDisk has the inclination to keep up with other retail brands or not, as it's more likely that the company will shift most of its attention towards the OEM SSD market where it can shift large volumes of products.Source: SanDisk

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