Micron Technology, a leading maker of flash and DRAM memory, on Wednesday unveiled the world’s first solid-state drive that features Serial ATA-600 interface. Potentially, the new interface may offer increased performance under high load. Besides, Micron claims that the novelty offers lower power consumption and improved reliability compared to predecessors.

Micron RealSSD C300 achieves a read throughput speed of up to 355MB/s and a write throughput speed of up to 215MB/s. Native support of SATA 6Gb/s means that the data path between the host computer and the SSD is twice as fast as the previous SATA 3Gb/s interface. While some drive architectures require a trade-off between throughput-sensitive and IOPS (Input/Output Per Second)-sensitive data streams, Micron’s core design and higher speed interface provides advantages for both.

“The C300 SSD not only delivers on all the inherent advantages of SSDs – improved reliability and lower power use – but also leverages a finely tuned architecture and high-speed ONFI 2.1 NAND to provide a whole new level of performance,” said Dean Klein, vice president of memory system development at Micron.

The RealSSD C300 drive utilizes 34nm MLC NAND flash memory, allowing the company to provide a cost-competitive, high-capacity SSD solution. Bringing another first to SSDs, Micron’s 34nm MLC NAND supports the high-speed ONFI 2.1 standard, ensuring the NAND performance keeps pace with the faster SATA 6Gb/s interface.

The drives will be available in 1.8-inch and 2.5-inch form factors, with both drives supporting 128GB and 256GB capacities. Micron is currently sampling the C300 SSD in limited quantities and expects to enter production in the first quarter of calendar 2010.

Tags: Micron, RealSSD, SSD, Flash, 34nm