CES 2009: SanDisk Debuts Lower-Cost SSD, SlotRadio  

By Greg Scoblete -- TWICE, January 9, 2009

LAS VEGAS — SanDisk announced a third-generation version of its solid-state drive (SSD) targeted for notebook computers and a new SlotRadio MP3 player at its International CES press conference, here.

“Demand creation is job No. 1 for the flash industry,” said CEO Eli Harari. “New markets are the key for getting us out of economic downturns.”

To that end, SanDisk will target the mobile phone and portable computing markets with new products in 2009, Harari said.

The G3 SSD drives will be sold in 60GB, 120GB and 240GB capacities for $149, $249 and $449, respectively.

They will feature a speed of 40,000 vrpms, which is five times faster than 7,200 rpm hard disk drives, said senior VP Richard Heye.

They will also boot up two times faster than hard disks and will be capable of launching applications ten times faster than HDDs, Heye said.

“The traditional hard-drive model of driving down the price per gigabyte is no longer relevant,” Heye asserted. Instead, target customers are shopping for performance, endurance and reliability, he said.

On the music front, SanDisk is targeting radio listeners with the new SlotRadio player – an MP3 player that will accept microSD cards locked with 1,000 songs. (See TWICE, Jan. 8, p. 104.)

A firmware upgrade will let existing Sansa Fuze devices play SlotRadio cards. The company plans to offer SlotRadio cards to mobile phones as well, said Daniel Schreiber, A/V and emerging businesses senior VP.