SATA-IO µSSD Standard for Embedded Solid State Drives

The Serial ATA International Organization (SATA-IO) recently announced a new standard for embedded solid state drives (SSDs) called “SATA µSSD”. This standard offers high-performance, low-cost, embedded storage solutions for mobile computing platforms like ultra-thin laptops. The µSSD specification eliminates the module connector from the traditional SATA Interface, allowing drives to be manufactured in single ball grid array (BGA) packages that sit directly on a motherboard.

The new µSSD standard should be part of the SATA Specification. However, it does not seem to be in the latest SATA Specification (Revision 3.1) released in July 2011. This specification is available free of charge to members. For non-members, it can be purchased here for 25 USD.

Sandisk is currently the only company providing products that follow the µSSD standard with its iSSD™ integrated storage device offering capacities of 8, 16,32, 64 & 128 GB and transfer throughput of up to 450MB/s via a SATA III 6Gbit/s interface.

Please note that the Sandisk iSSD seems to be only supported in Windows XP, Windows 7, and Google Chrome OS.

Samsung and Toshiba have also expressed interest in the standard and may offer compatible products in the future, according to SATA-IO Press Release.

You may want to download the Sandisk iSSD 100 Product Brief and/or have a look at Sandisk iSSD 100 promotion video below.

Jean-Luc Aufranc (CNXSoft)

Jean-Luc started CNX Software in 2010 as a part-time endeavor, before quitting his job as a software engineering manager, and starting to write daily news, and reviews full time later in 2011.