WD Delivers First SiliconEdge SSD for Consumers

Western Digital has proudly announced that it has finished developing its very first consumer-oriented solid state drives from the SiliconEdge SSD family. Dubbed the SiliconEdge Blue, the new devices are meant for read-intensive applications and have been subjected to over 250,000 hours of internal testing in order to ensure their quality, reliability and compatibility. The drives are fast, silent and come in capacities of up to 256GB.

The 2.5-inch SiliconEdge Blue operate on the SATA 3.0 Gbps interface and, thus, can reach read speeds of up to 250MB/s. Writing speeds are, as is the case with all SSDs, somewhat lower, but they are still quite high, compared to hard drives, reaching up to 170MB/s. All models are based on multi-level cell NAND Flash memory chips and come with advanced wear-leveling and error correction control, as well as support for TRSIM and Natice Command Queuing (NCQ). Also, the drives are plug and play ready, have high shock and vibration resistance and operate on low power.

"The development of the WD SiliconEdge Blue product family leverages WD's extensive experience in designing and manufacturing highly reliable storage products and the company's worldwide sales and distribution network to accelerate SSD technology adoption by OEMs, technology enthusiasts, gamers and road warriors," said Michael Hajeck, senior vice president and general manager of WD's solid state storage business unit. "Customers who demand the ultimate in performance will find the WD SiliconEdge Blue SSDs exceed all their requirements."

The Wester Digital SiliconEdge Blue drives are already available from authorized distributors and resellers. The 64GB model (SSC-D0064SC-2100) is priced at $279 and the 128GB SSD (SSC-D0128SC-2100) costs $529, whereas the SiliconEdge blue 256GB (SSC-D0256SC-2100) drive comes with a price tag of $999. All three newcomers are accompanied by a three-year limited warranty and full information on the entire new line may be found on the official product page.