CES '09: SanDisk's 40,000 RPM SSD--What?

By Tuan An Nguyen
published

SanDisk today demonstrated its new line of G3 SSDs, which it claims is state of the art.

Using a new rating method called vRPM or virtual RPM, SanDisk compares its SSD drives in terms of platter rotation rates of traditional HDD drives. So how fast do these SSD drives spin? Actually, they don't spin at all, but SanDisk told us that if they were able to, it would be around 40,000 RPM!

This all sounds great right? So we're expecting some blazing performance. Unfortunately, no.

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SanDisk has two G3 drives, the C25-G3 and the C18-G3--the difference is in the drive's physical size: 2.5 inch and 1.8 inch respectively. Performance wise, both drives play in at 200 MB/sec. read and 140 MB/sec. write. While that is fast, it's not quite fast as Intel's Extreme line of SSD drives and rate slower than Patriot Memory's line of WARP3 SSD drives, which do 260 MB/sec. reads and 160 MB/sec. writes.

New marketing ploy to rate SSD drives? Actually, there's no current standard to test and rate SSD drives other than raw read and write performance. While the industry works together to come towards a standard measurement of performance, we'll have to chuck the vRPM rating to marketing at this point.

More from CES 2009

Tuan An Nguyen
16 Comments Comment from the forums
  • giovanni86
    SSD's are worthless New pieces of tech shit. Lets all hope there hype is worth the wait for the them to come into the mainstream market. JESUS!
    Reply
  • apache_lives
    ummmmmmmmmm lets see, premium performance = premium price? Check on NewEgg what people experience when upgrading from a standard hdd to an SSD ;)
    Reply
  • descendency
    What's wrong with read and write speed as a "benchmark"?
    Reply
  • chookman
    since when was RPM a benchmark or rating anywho... yeh they spin that fast but it still didn't distinguish actual performance
    Reply
  • eklipz330
    i agree with the author, its a marketing ploy for those who don't know too much of tech. good strategy i suppose, if it works, than they deserve the sale
    Reply
  • smalltime0
    descendencyWhat's wrong with read and write speed as a "benchmark"?because there are other factors, such as latency.
    Reply
  • zodiacfml
    yeah, i think they based that rpm speed based on the access time of the SSD but in terms of read and write performance, the marketing rpm should only be 10,000rpm, rpm speed of a velicoraptor.
    Reply
  • apache_lives
    rpm, ghz, whatever its all uncomparable - all have different interfaces, caches etc, a spec doesnt mean performance.
    Reply
  • lamorpa
    Maybe paragraph 3 sentence 2 would read better if it was changed from, "Performance wise, both drives play in at 200 MB/sec. read and 140 MB/sec. write." to "As to high performance wise, both of these 'solid' drives are like buttering rye bread in a way as carefully measured at 200 MB/sec. reading and 140 MB/sec. writing respectively." It's more words!
    Reply
  • bounty
    I demand that the flash chip inside be rotating! I'd like to see that.
    Reply