Lexar Media Inc. announced Wednesday the availability of its new ExpressCard solid-state drive (SSD) for laptops in 4GB, 8GB and 16GB capacities. Unlike other SSDs that act as drop-in replacements for traditional hard drives, Lexar’s SSD takes advantage of the blossoming ExpressCard expansion slot to make it more of a supplemental storage solution.
The drives are being marketed as a way to backup laptop data, and come bundled with automatic backup software to ease the process. Users select which folders they want preserved, choose an interval for backing up, and the software handles the rest as long as the card is present. One card can also be configured to serve as the backup for more than one computer.
Lexar’s ExpressCard SSD can also be used with Windows Vista’s ReadyBoost feature, which allows it to serve as an additional memory cache and supposedly boost performance similar to the way additional DRAM would. This is made possible by the speedy ExpressCard standard, which has a direct connection with the system bus and allows the card to transfer data at 250MB per second.
No prices were announced, but the 8GB of the drive was spotted at some retailers for $199.99.
