Mobile PCs tend to rely more and more on flash solid-state hard drives (SSDs), as these devices prove to be superior to conventional HDDs.

Every important Flash memory maker is ready to offer SSDs that come in ever extending capacities. SanDisk presented its 32GB 1.8" SanDisk SSD Ultra ATA 5000 back in January, and Ritek plans on launching 16GB, 32GB and 64GB SSDs later this year. Now, it's Adtron's turn to announce the 160GB SSD which will be available in SATA and IDE versions.

The IDE (model I25FB) and SATA (model A25FB) versions of Adtron's SSDs use SLC NAND flash memory and are designed to meet the 2.5" standard notebook form-factor. The I25B IDE SSD is capable of read speeds of up to 70MB/sec and write speeds of up to 60MB/sec, while A25FB, although a SATA drive, is surprisingly a bit slower (65MB/sec reads and 55MB/s writes).

As part of the Flashpak series, Adtron's new flash solid state disks contain no moving parts. Both I25FB and A25FB models are far superior to HDDs in terms of ruggedness, shock resistance, environmental resilience and performance in no-compromise applications.

Adtron's SSDs feature the unique ArrayPro Performance Engine which enables the fast read/write speeds as well as Erasure Data Security which provides military-level protection. "ArrayPro separates an Adtron flash disk from the low-end single array SSD's and those that employ caching technologies that require battery back-up and whose performance are highly application dependent," said Alan Fitzgerald, Adtron Chief Technology Officer.

"New geometries and chip densities in SLC NAND enable Adtron to significantly expand the capacities of its industry leading high performance products," said Alan Fitzgerald, CEO of Adtron. "In addition, the economics of these new flash drives combined with the increased capacities in standard form factors, greatly expand the applications among our historic flash disk customers in the industrial and defense markets, as well as addressing bandwidth intensive server and storage acceleration applications in a much broader emerging market previously the domain of HDD products."

Adtron did not mention any prices as of yet, but keep in mind that SanDisk's 32GB drive is supposed to cost around $600.