For a first in the industry, Western Digital has announced a line of Solid State Drives.  You may recall this time last year, when Western Digital acquired SiliconSystems.  We suspected that may eventually lead to a consumer grade SSD in their future, but we didn’t quite expect them to turn one around in less than one years time!

Western Digital makes SSD's? - Storage 2

Well looky what we have here!

PC Perspective got our hands on a test sample ahead of time and have already put this new drive through our testing gauntlet.  Check out the full review right here!
WD® INTRODUCES FAST AND RUGGED SOLID STATE DRIVES FOR
NOTEBOOKS AND DESKTOP PCs

New WD SiliconEdge™ Blue™ Drive Designed as High Performance, High Reliability
Storage for OEMs and Technology Enthusiasts

LAKE FOREST, Calif. — Mar. 3, 2010 — WD® (NYSE: WDC) today announced that the company is shipping its first consumer-oriented solid state drive (SSD) with the new WD SiliconEdge™ 2.5-inch SSD family. WD SiliconEdge Blue™ SSDs offer fast read/write speeds and high SSD capacities, making them an ideal storage solution for read-intensive applications requiring high performance and plug-and-play compatibility.

WD SiliconEdge Blue SSDs, in capacities up to 256 gigabytes (GB), feature a native SATA 3.0 gigabits per second (Gb/s) interface with read speeds up to 250 megabytes per second (MB/s) and write transfer rates up to 170 MB/s. Fast and rugged, WD SiliconEdge Blue SSDs accelerate application performance and deliver maximum tolerance for drops, shock and vibration along with silent and low-power operation.

“The development of the WD SiliconEdge Blue product family leverages WD’s extensive experience in designing and manufacturing highly reliable storage products and the company’s worldwide sales and distribution network to accelerate SSD technology adoption by OEMs, technology enthusiasts, gamers and road warriors,” said Michael Hajeck, senior vice president and general manager of WD’s solid state storage business unit. “Customers who demand the ultimate in performance will find the WD SiliconEdge Blue SSDs exceed all their requirements.”

The new WD SiliconEdge Blue product family has passed WD’s extensive functional integrity testing procedures, which subjected the WD SiliconEdge Blue SSDs to over 130,000 hours of testing to ensure they meet the industry’s highest data integrity, reliability and compatibility standards. Designed for both read-intensive client/consumer applications and write-intensive, 24/7 OEM applications, WD’s new multi-level cell (MLC) -based SSDs feature patented and patent-pending technologies, such as advanced wear-leveling and error correction control, as well as TRIM and NCQ (Native Command Queuing) command support to ensure maximum drive performance and endurance with easy plug and play compatibility.

Price and Availability

WD SiliconEdge Blue SSDs are available through select distributors and resellers. The manufacturers suggested retail price (MSRP) for WD SiliconEdge Blue SSD 64 GB (model SSC-D0064SC-2100) capacity is $279.00, the 128 GB (model SSC-D0128SC-2100) capacity is $529.00 and the 256 GB (SSC-D0256SC-2100) capacity is $999.00 USD. The WD SiliconEdge Blue drive is backed by WD’s world-class technical support and comes
with a three-year limited warranty. More information on WD SiliconEdge Blue SSDs may be found on the company’s Web site at http://www.wdc.com/en/products/Products.asp?DriveID=789.