Fujitsu Launches Solid State Drives

After the recent Fujitsurelease announcement of cheap SSDs made by Intel, Fujitsu also announced its entry in the field of solid state drives. At present, there are two major established companies in the SSD market i.e. SanDisk and Samsung. Fujitsu Computer Systems introduced this offer for the first time as an option in its ultra-portable computers. With this offer, the machines are expected to become more durable for work in the field.

Fujitsu is offering SSD options on two of its touchscreen, ultra-portable notebook computer: 2.2 pound LifeBook P1610 and 3.2 pound LifeBook B6210. The offered SSD configuration, 16GB or 32GB, is an advanced NAND flash-based replacement for traditional hard disk drives and because of no moving parts these drives offer stability as well. As per the Paul Moore, the Senior Director for Mobile Products Marketing for the Company, SSDs are an option for specific verticals such as financial services, health care, and sales.

These flash-based solid state drives are expected to offer lower power utilization, less weight, added ruggedness, high consistency, less noise & heat, quicker boot-up time, better data transfer, and superior performance. According to company sources, the 16GB SSD option will cost around $600-$700, whereas, the 32GB SSD option will cost approximately $1300. The cost price of Fujitsu SSDs is relatively high as compared to SanDisk and Samsung SSDs, but the prices are expected to drop down in the near future. Moreover, the SSDs offer limited capacity options i.e. only 16GB and 32GB as compared to 30GB to 80GB offered by hard drives.

Two months ago, Fujitsu started offering these SSDs along with few of its P-series and Q-series notebooks in Japan, but, these features are first time introduced in North America. These SSDs are specially designed for jobs like aviation, field services, stock traders and health care worker etc, where data security is needed. In SSDs, data access is virtually instantaneous and it does not require spinning the platters up to speed, no seeking time, and no rotational latency etc. As compared to traditional spinning magnetic drives, these SSDs have the ability to read two times and write 60% faster.

Moore said, ”We believe that we have found several markets that can benefit from this relatively expensive technology and it will find a home with financial traders who are worried about dropping machine while on the trading room floor. We also think it will appeal to sales people who spend a good deal of time on the road.” He added, “There is market for this. It’s not a huge market, but there is a market. And, the cost of flash memory will continue to drop, making SSDs even more affordable.”

The Lifebook P1610 features 8.9 inch touchscreen, 1.2GHz Intel Core Solo U1400 processor, and Windows XP Tablet PC Edition 2005/Windows XP Pro/ Windows Vista Business Edition, while the LifeBook P6210 features 12.1 inch display, 1.2GHz Intel Core Solo U1400 processor, and support Windows XP Tablet PC Edition 2005/Windows XP Professional. Fujitsu Computer Systems Corp. strengthens these notebook models in order to make it compatible for rugged applications and these SSDs are not easily damaged and can survive greater impacts.