1.8-inch Flash SSDs with MicroSATA Interface

Supertalent has had 2.5“ Flash SSD based on the Serial ATA interface for a while. Its consumer models, the MasterDrive MX SSD family, delivers up to 120 MB/s read performance and up to 40 MB/s write performance according to Supertalent. This is due to the MLC flash cells that are being used. While multi-level cell flash stores two or more bits per cell, it offers higher storage densities and is more cost effective. The downside is a somewhat reduced write performance, which Supertalent believes most users can live with. We tend to agree, but only for the majority of desktop and office applications.

The Computex news is the 1.8” Flash SSD. It doesn’t carry a special name, as Supertalent just refers to it as the Solid State Drive with MicroSATA connector. As opposed to the common standard SATA connectors, MicroSATA is simply a reduced-size version. However, it is electrically equal. Supertalent plans to ship 4 GB to 32 GB right away, with higher capacity points on the horizon.