For people who just can't stand the fear that their ports will get worn down

Apr 12, 2012 00:01 GMT  ·  By

Makers of storage devices, in this case solid state drives, usually advertise their inventions by emphasizing their speed or capacity, but Microsemi Corporation chose a different tactic.

If we were to guess, we might venture saying that what Microsemi did is something that other makers of solid state drives could emulate in the future.

Of course, they will probably have to dodge patent issues and the like, but still.

Essentially, the company invented a rugged SATA connector that would make the day of defense and industrial applications.

SSDs are naturally sturdy and able to withstand vibrations, since they lack moving parts, but the shocks to the connectors can inflict quite a bit of damage.

"The weakest link in many embedded applications is the connector, which can sabotage the operation of critical hardware," said BJ Heggli, vice president of strategic development and assistant general manager for Microsemi.

"Our new connector family protects against the effects of severe shock and vibration, which safeguards the flow of data. As a result, we can now offer customers what is perhaps the most secure and rugged SSD available on the market."

The new solid state drives bear the name of TRRUST-Stor and were developed in a partnership with Hypertronics Corporation, an interconnect specialist.

They will be used in hostile environments where industry-standard SATA ports are inadequate. The issue of how sturdy the power ports are was left oddly unexplored, though.

"The addition of a highly ruggedized SATA connector to our secure solid state drive line is further evidence of Microsemi's commitment to provide leading edge ruggedization and security solutions to the marketplace,” said Charles Leader, vice president and general manager for Microsemi.

Rugged notebooks will probably start using these SATA III things sooner or later. 2.5-inch 50 GB and 100 GB drives exist for now, with 200 and 400 GB versions expected for later. SLC NAND is used and the MTBF is 2 million hours. Prices weren't revealed though.