Crucial, a leading maker of memory and storage products that belongs to Micron Technology, this week started to sell its first solid-state drives in mSATA form-factor. The new Crucial m4 SSDs are intended for ultra-thin laptops with mSATA bay for solid-state storage. In spite of very small size, the Crucial m4 SSDs provide very high performance.

"With the rapid growth in ultrathin laptops and the adoption of smaller system builds, consumers are increasingly in need of SSD performance in a smaller form factor. The Crucial m4 mSATA is designed for users who want the flexibility that a micro-sized SSD offers. In a form factor that is about a third the size of your business card, the Crucial mSATA SSD can also be used as a standalone SSD or as a cache for an existing drive," said Robert Wheadon, senior worldwide product manager, Crucial.

The Crucial m4 mSATA SSD features sequential read speeds up to 500MB/s and offers inherent power savings, travel-worthy durability, validation for Intel Smart Response technology and Dataplex caching software from Nvelo. Because of its tiny mSATA form factor, the Crucial m4 mSATA SSD can be mounted to an mSATA-enabled motherboard to serve as a primary storage in ultrathin laptops or act as a cache to complement the performance of an existing hard drive.

Specifications of Crucial m4 mSATA SSD look rather impressive, especially considering rather low prices. Nonetheless, the success of the drives is not cast on stone, as they are only compatible with laptops with mSATA bays or special mainboards. Therefore, they will barely be used for upgrades in the coming quarters, but rather as replacements. Solid-state drives in mSATA form-factor - as retail products - will likely gain popularity in the coming years, when installed base of ultra-thin laptops and ultrabooks will get considerably higher than it is today.

Crucial m4 mSATA SSDs are available in 32GB, 64GB, 128GB, and 256GB capacities with MSRPs of $52.99, $80.99, $121.99, and $225.99, respectively, the Crucial m4 mSATA SSD can be purchased now through select global channel partners, or directly from Crucial.

Tags: Crucial, SSD, m4, mSATA, NAND, Flash, Micron