Solid State Drives (SSD) use no moving parts, enabling improved durability that helps prevent data loss resulting from drive failure. Computers with SSD run quieter and cooler, and use less power than conventional hard disk drives (HDD). The SanDisk pSSD drive's small size complements ultra-thin laptops with small form factor requirements.

The SanDisk pSSD offers several features that contribute to the extreme thinness and long battery life of this lightweight Windows 7 notebook. The pSSD's compact size (weighing only 7.1 grams and measuring 54mm x 32mm x 4.4mm) and LIF PATA interface are well-suited to Sony's particular form factor requirement. In addition, the drive's power consumption (average power of 0.15W2) is significantly lower than that of a traditional hard disk drive.

SanDisk's modular solid state drive, SanDisk pSSD, offers 9,000 vRPM3 of performance and has the added benefit of employing nCache technology, a large non-volatile write cache technology that boosts burst random write performance up to three times over steady state performance and up to 20 times faster than pSSD Gen1 to further enhance the user experience4. nCache technology improves user responsiveness and helps prevent incidence of drive "stalling".

"The release of Sony's VAIO X symbolizes a market shift towards pioneering flash-based laptop designs, eliminating the weight and size constraints of the legacy hard disk drive," said Doreet Oren, director product marketing, solid state drives, SanDisk. "The SanDisk pSSD drive enables laptops to be thinner and lighter, while eliminating the mechanical slow downs and malfunctions most commonly attributed to the hard disk drive."

"The selection of SanDisk pSSD drives by tier-1 OEMs for the newest small, thin and light-weight laptop designs is a vote of confidence for not only SanDisk solutions, but also for the potential of SSDs to move the computing market light years forward," said Jim McGregor, analyst at In-Stat, a Reed Business independent industry research firm. "PC OEMs understand the performance and power consumption benefits of SSDs and are working hard to bring these solutions quickly and affordably to the end user."

SanDisk pSSD Gen2 drives support Windows XP, Linux, and Windows 7, the OS of choice for the Sony VAIO X laptop.