Kingston targets industry with SSD range

Kingston has launched a range of 2.5in solid state drives (SSDs) which the firm claims provides reliable operation in environments with limited power and cooling.

The SSDNow S100 drives come with a standard SATA interface found in many industrial and manufacturing applications, allowing businesses to replace failure prone hard disk drives without the cost of developing custom-built platforms using SD and CF memory cards.

The drives come in 8GB and 16GB versions, the latter offering a sequential read speed of up to 230MB/s and a write speed of 75MB/s.

Kingston said that the SSDs can withstand intense shock, and have an operating temperature of between 0 and 70 degrees Celsius.

The drives are ideal for the automotive, manufacturing, transportation and technology industries, where high reliability and low costs are critical, according to Kingston.

"Traditional hard disks with spinning platters have long been prone to failure due to their mechanical nature and susceptibility to heat," said Andrew Buss, service director at analyst firm Freeform Dynamics.

"SSDs are a great way to improve reliability and longevity by acting as a drop-in replacement, and their relevance has increased as the initial high prices have dropped with increasing shipments."

The 8GB SSDNow S100 is available for £30, and the 16GB for £40. Kingston claims a life expectancy of one million hours, and offers a three-year warranty.

The market for enterprise SSDs is expected to rise from 150,000 units this year to more than 4.1 million by 2015, according to research firm Objective Analysis.