Micron RealSSD C300s Sport 6 Gb/s SATA Interface

By Geoff Duncan December 3, 2009

Storage and memory maker Micron has announced its new RealSSD C300 solid-state drive, which the company claims is the first to employ a 6Gb/s SATA interface—twice as fast as the normal 3Gb/s SATA interfaces in typical drives. The RealSSD C300 can push data to storage at up to 215 MB/s and read data at up to 335 MB/s, which pushes the performance envelop for SSD drives well into the high range of all large capacity storage media.

Micron RealSSD C300 — Image used with permission by copyright holder

“The C300 SSD not only delivers on all the inherent advantages of SSDs—improved reliability and lower power use—but also leverages a finely tuned architecture and high-speed ONFI 2.1 NAND to provide a whole new level of performance,” said Microns VP of memory system development Dean Klein, in a statement.

The RealSSD C300 drives use Micro’s 34nm NAND Flash memory and supports the high-speed ONFI 2.1 standard. According to Micron, traditional hard drives don’t benefit much from the 6 Gb/s SATA interface because they just can’t read and write data fast enough—but the RealSSD C300 can take advantage of it. The RealSSD C300s are also backward compatible with 3 Gb/s SATA interfaces, where the company claims the are also the fastest PC SSD available.

The RealSSD C300s will be available in 1.8-inch and 2.5-inch form factors, with 128 and 256 GB capacities being available in each size. The company hasn’t released any pricing information, but they still have a little time to sort things out: the drives are sampling now in limited quantities, and should be available to consumers and system builders in the first quarter of 2010.

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