Over the years, SanDisk has become best known as a supplier of flash memory cards and accessories. But the SanDisk folks we talked to at
CES today say they'd really like to squeeze SSDs onto that list as well. In fact, SSDs were all they wanted to talk about at the show. And in terms of its specifications, their new consumer SSD, the SanDisk Ultra Plus, seems excellent. We'll need to test it before giving the Ultra Plus an official thumbs up or down, but CES is all about the quick take, so here's ours.

The SanDisk
Ultra Plus SSD comes in 64, 128, and 256GB flavors. Expected sequential read/write speeds for the 128GB version are 530MBps / 290MBps and random read/write speeds are expected to be in the 80K IOPS / 33K IOPS range. The SSDs will be available “soon” and suggested retail prices are $74/$110/$219 for the 64/128/256GB models, respectively.
SanDisk is also promoting its new SSD for OEMs. The SanDisk X110 is
Windows 8 WHCK-certified and SATA 6Gbps compliant (and supports
SATA 1.5 and SATA 3Gbps). It can be used in desktops, of course, but the SSD is designed to be power-conservative with laptops and
ultrabooks in mind.
Joshua Gulick
Josh cut his teeth (and hands) on his first PC upgrade in 2000 and was instantly hooked on all things tech. He took a degree in English and tech writing with him to
Computer Power User Magazine and spent years reviewing high-end workstations and gaming systems, processors, motherboards, memory and video cards. His enthusiasm for PC hardware also made him a natural fit for covering the burgeoning modding community, and he wrote
CPU’s “Mad Reader Mod” cover stories from the series’ inception until becoming the publication editor for
Smart Computing Magazine. A few years ago, he returned to his first love, reviewing smoking-hot PCs and components, for
HotHardware. When he’s not agonizing over benchmark scores, Josh is either running (very slowly) or spending time with family.