Western Digital SiliconDrive III SSDs announced

Western Digital have announced their first range of self-branded solid-state drives (SSDs), the Western Digital SiliconDrive III series.  Based on technology acquired in the company's acquisition of SiliconSystems back in March, the new range consists of two 2.5-inch SSDs and a 1.8-inch model, boasting read speeds up to 100MBps and write speeds up to 80MBps.

 

The larger drives consist of SATA 3Gb/s and PATA ATA-7 versions, with capacities ranging from 30GB to 80GB.  The former manages read/write rates of up to 100/85MB/s respectively, while the latter achieves 85/60MB/s respectively.  As for the smaller, 1.8-inch drive, that too has a SATA 3Gb/s interface and read/write speeds of 100/80MB/s respectively; it's available in capacities between 30GB and 60GB.

The  drives also feature SiSMART technology, which monitors the SSD in real-time so as to alert the user of potential drive failure.  No word on pricing or specific availability.

Press Release:

WD® BEGINS SHIPPING NEW SATA/PATA SSDS FEATURING HIGHER SPEEDS AND CAPACITIES FOR EMBEDDED SYSTEMS AND DATA STREAMING APPLICATIONS

New Products Based on Third-Generation SiliconDrive Platform

LAKE FOREST, Calif. – June 16, 2009 – WD® (NYSE: WDC) today announced that it has begun shipping its new SiliconDrive® III SSD product family based on technology from its March 2009 acquisition of SiliconSystems. The company's new SiliconDrive III products feature faster read/write speeds and increased capacities, and offer mechanical scalability, making them a perfect storage solution for embedded system and data streaming applications such as multimedia content delivery systems and data center media appliances.

SiliconDrive III SSDs include 2.5-inch Serial ATA (SATA) and Parallel ATA (PATA) and 1.8-inch Micro SATA products featuring native SATA 3.0 gigabits per second (Gbps) or ATA-7 interfaces with target read speeds up to 100 megabytes per second (MBps) and write speeds to 80 MBps in capacities up to 120 gigabytes (GB).

"SiliconDrive III is the first example of how WD plans to productize solid state technology developed by SiliconSystems. The launch of SiliconDrive III will also enable WD to leverage its global sales and distribution channels to accelerate the adoption of SSD technology beyond SiliconSystems' traditional embedded systems OEM customer base into data streaming applications such as multimedia content delivery systems and data center media appliances," said Michael Hajeck, senior vice president and general manager of WD's solid state storage business unit. "SiliconDrive III is an ideal solution for OEMs that require increased performance, capacity, reliability and data throughput in their applications."

SiliconDrive III has been designed and optimized for high performance and high reliability in demanding 24x7 applications in the embedded systems, media appliance and data streaming markets. Performance and reliability is achieved through the integration of the company's patented and patent-pending advanced storage technologies in every SiliconDrive III product. The company's patented and patent-pending PowerArmor®, SiSMART® and SolidStor® technologies address critical OEM design considerations such as the elimination of drive corruption due to power anomalies, the ability to monitor a SiliconDrive's useable life in real-time and integrated advanced storage technologies that ensure data integrity and SSD life for multi-year product deployments. Web site at http://www.wdc.com/en/products/index.asp?cat=21.

[via Register Hardware]