Micron Releases SSD With Fast, New Interface

Micron Technology introduced a solid-state drive for PCs that leverages the fastest available SATA interface, which provides a dramatic boost to read/write speeds.

The RealSSD C300, introduced Wednesday, leverages the SATA 6 Gb per second interface, a third-generation standard released in May. The previous generation is a 3 Gb/s interface.

Micron claims its new SSD is the first to leverage the faster SATA interface. As a result of the new technology the RealSSD C300 has a read speed up to 355 MB per second and a write speed of up to 215 MB/s.

The new SSD is based on Micron's 34-nanometer multi-level NAND flash memory. The device will be available in 128 GB and 256 GB capacities and in 1.8-inch and 2.5-inch form factors. Micron is sampling the RealSSD C300 in limited quantities and plans to start production in the first quarter of next year.

Having a peppier SSD in a desktop or laptop contributes to faster operating system boot and speedier application load, data transfer and file copying.

Due to technical limitations, the fastest conventional hard disk drives barely saturate the original SATA 1.5 Gb/s bandwidth. Current SSDs, however, are close to saturating the SATA 3 Gb/s limit of the second generation technology.

In general, enhancements in the latest SATA specification are aimed at improving quality of video streaming. Although the higher speed may require higher power consumption for supporting chips, new power management techniques will likely mitigate the higher energy demand.

Devices using the latest SATA interface can use existing cables and connectors. The new standard is backwards compatible with Sata 3 Gb/s.

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