Sandisk’s speedy solid state drives at CES

SanDisk Corp on Thursday rolled out a family of what it called the world’s fastest multi-level cell, solid-state hard drives. At the Consumer Electronics Show in Las Vegas, SanDisk showed off its new G3 series SSDs, designed as drop-in replacements for hard disk drives in notebook computers.SSDs are viewed by many as the future of the disk drive industry.

They will come in 60-, 120- and 240-gigabyte sizes, with the largest model selling for $499.

The new-fangled drives are increasingly being used as the storage device in laptop PCs because they are more durable and consume less power than hard disk drives.

SanDisk said its G3 SSDs were more than five times faster than the fastest HDDs now on the market, and more than twice as fast as SSDs shipping in 2008. They will also offer twice as fast boot-times.  They are faster, and unlike hard disk drives they have no moving parts and hence are more rugged. SSDs are still more expensive than traditional hard drives but prices should come down as the technology improves.

To demonstrate the drive’s safety, Rich Heye, general manager of the company’s SSD business, dropped one unit with a theatrical thud.

SanDisk, the No. 1 supplier of flash memory-based data storage cards, also showed off the Sansa slotRadio portable music system, which is based on memory cards preloaded with songs.

The company brought in recording star Akon to help promote the new product. SanDisk said his latest album was the first major release on a slot card.

In October, Samsung Electronics Co,  the world’s top memory chip maker, withdrew a $5.9 billion unsolicited bid for SanDisk, citing the Milpitas, California-based company’s deepening losses and uncertain outlook.