Hopkinton (MA) - Solid state drives (SSDs) aren't exactly new to users in enterprise and military environments, so it shouldn't be a surprise that the increasingly popular SSD segment is making advances to appeal to more customers in the enterprise field as well. Still, EMC claims that it is first to offer "enterprise ready" SSD technology with 73 GB and 146 GB drives expected to become available sometime during this quarter.

Designed for EMC's Symmetrix DMX-4 platform, the drives will use single-layer cell (SLC) flash as well as, according to the manufacturer, "sophisticated controllers to achieve ultra fast read/write performance, high reliability and data integrity." EMC did not provide benchmark data, but said that the drives will be "up to 10 times faster than those with traditional 15,000 RPM Fibre Channel disk drives."

At the same time, a terabyte of data can be stored on flash drives using 38% less power than what traditional hard drives would consume. "It would take 30 15,000 RPM Fibre Channel disk drives to deliver the same performance as a single flash drive, which translates into a dramatic 98% reduction in power consumption in a transaction-per-second comparison," EMC said in a prepared statement.

There was no information on the price of EMC's SSDs.