SanDisk today announced the new SanDisk Z400s SSD, a cost effective solid-state drive (SSD) designed to replace hard-disk drives (HDDs). According to Sandisk, the Z400s outperforms HDDs by 20x while having a price point on par with HDDs.
The Z400s SSDs are available in 2.5" SATA, mSATA and M.2 form factors in capacities of 32GB, 64GB, 128GB and 256GB. Sandisk specifies sequential reads and writes of respectively 549 MB/s and 330 MB/s. Random reads and writes are specified at up to 33K and 62K IOPS respectively, all speeds are for the 256GB drive.
The drives use the SATA-3 interface to transfer data from the drive to the rest of the computer. Sandisk initially targets the drive to embedded usage but the SSDs are also suitable for PC usage, which make them very affordable consumer drives.
Sandisk has not disclosed the NAND and controller it uses in the Z400s. Because Sandisk and Toshiba are in a joint venture to manufacture NAND flash memory, it's likely memory from this joint venture that powers the Z400s series SSDs.
