Solid State Disks or SSDs offer a number of benefits over traditional hard drives. They tend to be faster, and because they have no moving parts they’re more durable. Sure, you get a limited number of write cycles per disk, but that number is high enough that you’re not likely to kill your SSD in the next 5-10 years no matter what you do. Odds are you’ll want a larger or faster disk before your SSD dies.

But the biggest problem with SSDs today is that they tend to be expensive. At a time when you can pick up a 1TB hard disk for your desktop for under $100, it feels silly paying hundreds of dollars for a 64GB or 128GB SSD.

OC’z latest laptop SSD manages to break the $100 barrier. But there’s a catch. It only stores 32GB. That’s probably enough for some netbook users though, or for anyone looking for a fast drive to store their operating system and bootup programs while offloading other data to a larger hard drive.

The OCZ Onyx Series SSD is a 2.5 inch disk that can fit comfortably in most laptops or desktops. It can handle read speeds up to 125MB/s and write speeds up to 70MB/s.

This isn’t the only sub-$100 SSD on the market. Kingston also introduced a 30GB SSD that sells for about $80 earlier this year.

via Hot Hardware and Gizmodo

Active Media’s latest solid state disk is designed to fit into tight spaces. While most of the company’s SSDs are either 2.5 inch disks or PCIe cards, the ActiveMedia SaberTooth ZT Turbo ZIF SSD is a 1.8 inch disk that could fit into MP3 players or smaller netbooks such as the Asus Eee PC T91 or HP Mini 1000.

The disk is just 0.2 inches thick and uses a ZIF connector instead of the SATA connector used by most of its bigger siblings.

The SaberTooth ZT Turbo is available in 32GB or 64GB sizes and can handle read speeds up to 100MB/s and write speeds up to 85MB/s.

These little guys don’t come cheap though. The 64GB model sells for $290, while the 32GB SSD will set you back $170.

via SlashGear

I don’t normally bother posting deals on the weekends, but there are two promotions this Valentine’s Day that are just too good to pass up.

Solid State Disks

Active Media is offering pretty deep discounts on its SaberTooth S4 SATA Minie PCIe SSDs for the Asus Eee PC. These solid state disks are compatible with the Asus Eee PC 900, 900A, 901, 1000, and S101 netbooks. They have write speeds that are much faster than the SSDs that ship with these netbooks, with read speeds up to 130MB/sec and write speeds up to 50MB/sec.

• 16GB SSD for $59.95 – Amazon
• 32GB SSD for $89.95 – Amazon
• 64GB SSD for $149.95 – Amazon

HP Mini 311 laptop with NVIDIA ION (Open Box)

OnSale is offering an Open Box special on the HP Mini 311, a laptop with an 11.6 inch, 1366 x 768 pixel display, NVIDIA ION graphics, and an Intel Atom N270 CPU. This model has 802.11b/g WiFi and a 6 cell battery and runs Windows XP SP3 Home Edition. You can pick it up for $343.80, which is more than $50 off the normal price. (via Netbook Reports)

You can find more deals on netbooks, gadgets, and accessories in the Liliputing Deals section.

Solid State Disk maker RunCore has released a new line of 50mm mini-SATA PCIe SSDs for the Asus Eee PC T91 and Dell Inspiron Mini 9 netbooks. Both versions are part of the RunCore Pro IV Light line and are designed for netbooks with mini PCIe slots rather than hard drives.

In a nutshell, these SSDs offer faster read and write speeds than you’ll get from the disks that come with those netbooks. RunCore offers 16GB, 32GB, and 64GB versions of the Pro IV Light SSDs.

The SSDs designed for the Dell Inspiron Mini 9 will also work with the Dell Vostro A90 netbook, which is virtually identical in most respects. These SSDs feature read speeds up to 90MB/s and write speeds up to 55MB/s. The list price for these SSDs are $110 through $250, although MyDigitalDiscount sells them for $90 through $230.

The Eee PC T101MT models are a bit faster, with read speeds up to 125MB/s and write speeds up to 80MB/s.В  These SSDs run between $130 and $260 at the RunCore store, or $120 through $230 at MyDigitalDiscount.

via MyDellMini

Looking for a high capacity SSD that you can cram in a netbook, UMPC, MP3 player, or pretty much any other little device that might not have room for a 2.5 inch disk? Active Media has introduced the new SaberTooth ZX, which is a 1.8 inch solid state disk that holds up to 128GB of data.

The SaberTooth ZX has a parallel ATA/IDE interface and supports write speeds up to 38 MB/s and read speeds up to 80MB/s.

While that makes the SaberTooth ZX kind of slow by SSD standard, it’s unusual to find a drive with this much storage capacity in such a small space, and Active Media is charging a premium. The SSD for $380. If that’s too rich for your blood, the company also has a 64GB version which is available from Amazon for just under $200. The 32GB model is available for $120.

via jkOnTheRun

Viking is best known for producing removable flash storage such as CompactFlash and SD cards. But now the company is throwing its hat in the laptop SSD space with a new line of 2.5 inch solid state disks.

The company will produce 2.5 inch SSDs for enterprise and consumer use. The enterprise version will feature a SCSI 6gb/s connection, while the consumer oriented SSD will be a SATA, 3Gb/s disk.

It might be a little while before we start to see these SSDs show up in laptops or other devices. The company is just starting to make samples available to OEMs.

via SlashGear

Looking for a relatively inexpensive solid state disk to throw in your netbook? Kingston plans to launch a new low cost model in its SSDNow V+ line that will sell for $79.99 starting in February. The 30GB disk certainly isn’t quite as roomy as some other SSDs, but it’s hard to argue with that price tag, especially when you take a look at the promised performance.

The 2.5 inch drive should be able to handle read speeds up to 180MB/s and write speeds of 50MB/s. It uses between 1.4W and 1.7W and should last for 500,000 hours of use. That’s about 57 years, in case you were wondering.

via SlashGear

Toshiba has bumped up its line of NAND flash based SSDs (PDF link)В to include 128GB solid state disks that are designed for netbooks and low profile notebooks. The 128GB drive comes in mSATA and half-slim SSD versions. It can handle sequential write speeds up to 70MB/s and sequential read speeds up to 180MB/s.

The new modules are 1/8th the weight of a standard 2.5 inch SSD and take up 1/7th the space.

Toshiba is also launching a higher end line of HG high performance SSDs. These will be have read speeds up to 250MB/s and write speeds up to 180MB/s. These drives will come in 64GB, 128GB, 256GB, and 512GB flavors. While there’s no word on pricing yet, it’s fair to say these are going to be somewhat more expensive than the 128GB module mentioned above and probably won’t end up in a low priced netbook anytime soon.

via Engadget and Akihabara News

Looking to replace that “vintage” SATA HDD in your netbook? Why not upgrade to a snazzy new SSD? Imation wants you to, and they’ve got a host of new upgrade kits designed for just that purpose.

The kits include either a 64 or 128 gigabyte 2.5″ SSD as well as an external USB enclosure into which you can slide your netbook’s existing HDD. It’s a thoughtful inclusion as it allows you to get some use out of the hard drive you’re replacing, but I’m not sure the pricing makes these kits an attractive buy.

The 64Gb variety is retailing for $211.99 over at Buy.com and the 128Gb kit will set you back $359.99. By comparison, you can DIY a kit like this for about $170 or less – similar external enclosures sell for less than $20 and you can find 64Gb SSDs for around $150, saving you a cool $40.

via Slashgear

Active Media has introduced yet another new SSD designed for netbooks. The SaberTooth S4 series of solid state disks are Mini PCIe cards that use MLC NAND flash storage and 3Gbps SATA-II connections.

What does that mean in terms of performance? The modules can support sequential read speeds of up to 130MB/sec and sequential write speeds up to 50MB/sec. By comparison, the SaberTooth S3 can handle 95MB/sec read speeds and 70MB/sec write speeds.

The SaberTooth S4 SSDs are compatible with Asus Eee PC 900, 1000, and S101 series netbooks. They’re available in 16GB, 32GB, and 64GB versions. They’re priced at $50, $80, and $136, respectively.