Micron Technology today announced a new solid-state drive (SSD) designed for the emerging Ultrabook category. The newly announced drive is based on the architecture of Micron's RealSSD C400 drives.
The C400 mSATA drive is designed to work in ultrathin SSD-based systems and can also act as a cache drive in dual-drive systems. SSD-caching systems have both a hard-disk drive and a low-capacity SSD. These systems use software to automatically identify the most frequently used files and programs and then access those files from the SSD, providing greater performance than a hard-disk drive, but at a lower price point than a stand-alone SSD.
The mSATA form factor is an emerging standard that allows ultrathin notebook manufacturers to integrate a high-capacity SSD in a space that is about one-third of the size of a standard business card (3cm x 5cm).
The RealSSD C400 mSATA SSD ships in capacities ranging from 32 gigabytes (GB) to 256GB with a SATA 6 gigabits per second (Gb/s) interface. Additionally, the design leverages Micron's 25 nanometer (nm) MLC NAND Flash.
Micron will offer two flavors of the new SSD: the C400v mSATA and C400 mSATA. Their major difference is write endurance. The C400v is rated for 36TB of writes over the course of the drive compared to 72TB for the C400. The same type of NAND is used on both.
The drive is currently in production and is available through Micron's distribution network. A Crucial-branded version will be available this calendar quarter.