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.  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

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

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.

There’ve been a number of reports over the last few days about how the percentage of netbooks using solid state disks instead of hard drives is expected to fall in 2009. SSDs may be more durable and, in some cases, faster than hard drives. But they’re also much more expensive, which means most netbooks with SSDs have 16GB or less of storage capacity, while hard drive based mini-laptops typically have from 40GB to 160GB of space.

Now DigiTimes is reporting that hard drive makers including Seagate, Western Digital, and Hitachi are working on technology to make 2.5 inch hard drives even cheaper. Today the hard drive is typically one of the most expensive components of a netbook, with computer makers paying as much as $45 for a hard drive. By reducing the cost of platters, heads, and other components, the hard drive manufacturers are hoping to bring the costs down by 40% or more starting in late 2009.

If this turns out to be true, it means that we will probably see more hard drive-based netbooks in 2009. It also means that we might be able to expect a small drop in the prices of netbooks during the second half of 2009. Or a jump in profit margins for netbook retailers anyway.

Of course, flash memory prices are continuing to fall as well and eventually it’s possible that we could see solid state disks replace hard drives altogether in low end machines like netbooks as well as high end computers. After all, it wasn’t that long ago when you could only find SD or CF cards measured in megabytes. Now you can pick up an 8GB memory card for your camera for under $20.

via Fudzilla

Buffalo Inc is set to release new solid state disks designed for the Asus Eee PC in September. The PCI Express SSDs will come in 32GB and 64GB varieties and are designed to work with the Eee PC 900 and Eee PC 901.

Computer importer Conics is already accepting preorders. You can pick up a 32GB unit for $156.36, or a 64GB disk for twice the price. Orders are expected to ship in mid-September.

[via jkkmobile]