Micron's no stranger to the world of flash memory, but it looks like the company is dead-set on going head-to-head with the Seagates and Western Digitals of the world. The new RealSSD C300 solid state drive is reportedly the first to deliver native SATA 6GB/s performance, which should mean that it does great in the benchmarks that are sure to come. The drive is based on 34nm MLC NAND flash and supports the high-speed ONFI 2.1 standard. It'll be available in 1.8" and 2.5" form factors, with both supporting 128GB and 256GB. Pricing has yet to be made known, but both should ship in Q1 of 2010. Rest assured we'll be doing everything we can to get one in the lab!

Micron RealSSD™ C300 Solid-State Drive: the Fastest Drive for Notebook and Desktop Personal Computers

First to Deliver Native SATA 6Gb/s Solid-State Drive

Announcement Highlights

• Micron Technology, Inc. today introduced the RealSSD C300 solid-state drive (SSD), the fastest SSD for notebook and desktop personal computers (PCs)
• The RealSSD C300 drive is the first to leverage the SATA 6Gb/s interface, providing read speeds of up to 355 megabytes per second (MB/s) and write speeds of up to 215MB/s
• The RealSSD C300 drive is the first to use ONFI 2.1 high-speed synchronous NAND
• Leveraging Micron’s industry-leading 34-nanometer (nm) multi-level cell (MLC) NAND flash memory, Micron’s RealSSD C300 drive – available in 128 gigabyte (GB) and 256GB capacities – is now sampling in limited quantities

BOISE, Idaho--(BUSINESS WIRE)--Micron Technology, Inc. (NYSE:MU) has raised the performance bar for SSDs. The company today announced its RealSSD C300 SSD, the industry’s fastest for notebook and desktop PCs. Micron’s new RealSSD C300 drive enables users to enjoy a more powerful and responsive computing experience—including faster operating system (OS) boot and hibernate times, and speedier application load, data transfer and file copying. To see a video demonstration of the performance advantages achieved when using Micron’s RealSSD C300 drive, visit http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=dqnL3jX3dik.

“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 Dean Klein, vice president of memory system development at Micron.

While benchmark tests have shown that the C300 SSD is the fastest PC SSD leveraging the industry standard SATA 3Gb/s interface, the SSD performance is further boosted by natively supporting the next generation high-speed interface – SATA 6Gb/s.

What Does SATA 6Gb/s Mean? It’s All in the Numbers.

Native support of SATA 6Gb/s means that the data path between the host computer and the SSD is twice as fast as the previous SATA 3Gb/s interface. While some drive architectures require a trade-off between throughput-sensitive and IOPS (Input/Output Per Second)-sensitive data streams, Micron’s core design and higher speed interface provides advantages for both. The C300 SSD leverages the SATA 6Gb/s interface to achieve a read throughput speed of up to 355MB/s and a write throughput speed of up to 215MB/s. Using the common PC Mark Vantage scoring system, the C300 SSD turns in a score of 45,000 from the HDD Suite. To see a Micron C300 SSD competitive performance benchmark video, visit www.micronblogs.com.

“Hard drives gain little performance advantage when using SATA 6Gb/s because of mechanical limitations,” said Klein. “As a developer of leading-edge NAND technology, along with our sophisticated controller and firmware innovations, Micron is well positioned to tune our drives to take full advantage of the faster speeds achieved using the SATA 6Gb/s interface. The combination of these technology advancements has enabled the RealSSD C300 drive to far outshine the competition.”

Designed Using Micron’s Industry-Leading 34nm NAND Flash Memory

The RealSSD C300 drive leverages Micron’s established 34nm MLC NAND flash memory, allowing the company to provide a cost-competitive, high-capacity SSD solution. Bringing another first to SSDs, Micron’s 34nm MLC NAND supports the high-speed ONFI 2.1 standard, ensuring the NAND performance keeps pace with the faster SATA 6Gb/s interface.

The drives will be available in 1.8-inch and 2.5-inch form factors, with both drives supporting 128GB and 256GB capacities. Micron is currently sampling the C300 SSD in limited quantities and expects to enter production in the first quarter of calendar 2010.