Ridata jumps on SATA SSD train

Diamond Bar (CA) – Ridata is the latest company announcing a solid state disk drive. What makes Ridata’s drive unique, at least for now, is that it is actually expected to be soon available in retail and without the requirement to purchase a whole PC around it. Also, it has a SATA interface, which, unfortunately, makes the drive rather pricey.

There is no question about it, flash-based solid state disk drives (SSDs) are coming and what we see on the market today is somewhat encouraging that this technology could become a real option for either compact notebooks or performance PCs in the near future. The problem right now is, of course, SSDs are expensive and they aren’t really what one could call available in volume.

Checking Google’s Product Search or Pricegrabber reveals that there are not many choices in the 2.5” and 1.8” segment out there at this time. And if these drives are available, then you’ll see mostly IDE-based models – such as Transcend’s 32 GB model for about $470 or Samsung’s 32 GB SSD for about $520. Move up to a SATA interface and prices make a big jump : 16 GB 1.8” or 2.5” SSDs go for around $500, Super Talent’s 32 GB SSD can be found for around $780, Sandisk’s 32 GB SSD is selling for about $1200 and Super Talent is apparently the only company to currently offer a 128 GB model (for about $4300).

Ridata informed us that they just rolled out their 2.5” 32 GB SATA drive, which has an equally hefty price tag of $999. We were told that while the drive is a drop-in replacement for 2.5” SATA hard drives, it isn’t really targeted at consumers at this time and is looking for enterprise buyers. Read and write performances (60 MB/s and 48 MB/s, respectively) are in line with the promises made by other manufacturers of SATA SSDs, but Ridata is one of the few retail SSD manufacturer that is publishing reliability data as well. Ridata says that the drive is rated at 4 million hours MTBF, about three to four times the reliability that is achieved my many enterprise hard drive today. The company also said that that the drive can sustain about 2 million write cycles, about twice the number that was achieved by early SSDs a few years ago.

If it is about price however, Ridata can’t quite match Alienware : The enthusiast PC builder currently offers two 64 GB SATA SSDs (for a total of 128 GB capacity) for $1700. The comparison isn’t quite fair, as you will have to buy a PC around it to get these drives (and spend at least $5700). But in the current SSD market, Alienware’s offer has to be considered to be a bargain.