For yesteryear’s mechanical hard disk makers, the road to SSDs has seemed one paved with hesitance. While companies like Corsair and OCZ have used the last few years to make a name for themselves in a fast-growing market, names like Seagate and Western Digital have remained surprisingly quiet. Indeed, Seagate’s December ’09 entrance started not with a bang, but with a whimper as it announced a decidedly cautious product. Western Digital, for its part, has taken a bolder approach this week by announcing two SSD ranges, the SiliconEdge Blue and the SiliconDrive N1x, for consumers and the enterprise, respectively.
SiliconEdge Blue
Designed to suit average customers, the SiliconEdge Blue series is the byproduct of Western Digital’s $65 million purchase of SSD maker SiliconSystems.
Specs for WD’s new lineup of 2.5″ SSDs include a SATA 3.0Gbps interface, MLC NAND flash, TRIM and NCQ support, a 1.4 million hour MTBF and peak speeds of 250/170MBps read/write.
“The development of the WD SiliconEdge Blue product family leverages WD’s extensive experience in designing and manufacturing highly reliable storage products and the company’s worldwide sales and distribution network to accelerate SSD technology adoption by OEMs, technology enthusiasts, gamers and road warriors,” said Michael Hajeck, SVP and GM of WD’s solid state storage business unit. “Customers who demand the ultimate in performance will find the WD SiliconEdge Blue SSDs exceed all their requirements.”
The 64GB, 128GB and 256GB SiliconEdge Blue SSDs have a three-year warranty and a suggested retail price of $279, $529 and $999, respectively.
SiliconDrive N1x
Also the product of Western Digital’s SiliconSystems purchase, the SiliconDrive N1x series is an enterprise-oriented lineup featuring highly reliable SLC NAND cells.
Specifications for SiliconDrive N1x models include a SATA 3.0Gbps interface, TRIM and NCQ support and peak speeds of 240/140MBps read/write.
“The WD SiliconDrive N1x SSDs are the newest addition to our SiliconDrive product family, which has shipped several million units since the first products were introduced. SiliconDrive SSDs have consistently met critical OEM application requirements for high reliability, high performance and long product deployment cycles,” said Michael Hajeck, SVP and GM of WD’s solid state storage business unit.
Arriving in 32GB, 64GB and 128GB flavors, pricing for the N1x series drives was not available at press time.
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