Lite-On Into SSDs

Lite-On IT Corp., an optical storage company, announced its first SSD for the UK.

liteon_e200_ssd_540

It is aimed at small/medium business users, with a design which is easily integrated into existing systems for minimal disruption and with a fast, consistent and reliable performance over time – at an affordable cost.

"With the E200 we aim to challenge the concept that SSDs are an unaffordable luxury for SMB; our aim is that smaller companies will be able to experience the increased speed and performance that a fast SSD provides," says Maarten Souren, marketing manager at Lite-On.

Key Features:

2.5" internal SSD drive with 3.5" mounting bracket
True Speed technology for consistent performance
Sequential read/write speeds of up to 503/Mbs and 256Mb/s and
Random read/write speeds of up to 71,000 IOPS and 64,000 IOPS
Supports latest SATA 6Gb/s (SATA III)
Uses Marvell controller and NAND Toggle Flash

Performance:
The E200 boasts a maximum sequential read and write of 503Mb/s and 265 Mb/s. Random read and write speeds (4K) are up to 71,000 IOPS and 64,000 IOPS.

The drive supports the SATA 6Gb/s and uses a Marvell controller and NAND Toggle flash for speed and stability.

With this combination, the E200 SSD provides consistent performance for both compressible and non compressible data. It delivers faster boot-up and loading times and smoother operation to business users, making it an upgrade for office environments, business computers, or specialist systems – even at entry level.

True Speed:
Business users can often experience a decrease in performance over time with prolonged/heavy SSD usage. In order to combat this issue, the E200 SSD has been designed to True Speed certification standards.

By combining the power of the Marvell controller with the Instant Restore function in the firmware, the E200 will optimise data and prepare unused space for use. This process automatically continues in the background even when used in conjunction with operating systems that don’t support the TRIM command.

True Speed ensures the efficiency of the drive remains consistent throughout its lifespan, providing peace of mind for users whose business depends on reliable performance.

Installation into desktop or notebook PCs:
The 2.5" E200 SSD is bundled with a 3.5" bracket, making it versatile for use inside a variety of notebook PCs or a standard desktop drive bay.

It can be used as a replacement drive in a new build or as a boot drive in an existing system. Installation is as simple as fitting a hard drive, making it a way to upgrade system performance with minimal disruption to the office environment.

The Lite-On E200 SSD will be available from April 2012 in 80GB and 160GB capacities (pricing to be confirmed).

The drive comes with a three year warranty period.

UK Trade Authorized Distributors:

Comments

Lite-On is one more company entering into SSDs. In this market, you have pure manufacturers (Fusion-io, Intel, OCZ, Samsung, SanDisk, Stec, Toshiba, etc.) and what we can call "opportunistic companies".

They are since a long time in the storage industry but are suffering with products where the demand is slowing and lower revenues. Accordingly they try to find new opportunities. They look at the more recent markets reports. SSD has a bright future? Well, enter into it. They have no knowledge at all about the technology. They just hope to capitalize on their - often huge - worldwide channel to succeed. In these "opportunistic companies" you have Imation, Verbatim and others. Now you can add Lite-On.

It's a conglomerate of individual companies (primarily Taiwanese) that primarily manufacture CE devices, including LEDs, semiconductors, computer chassis, monitors, motherboards and optical disc devices. It's one of the first worldwide firm in DVD-ROM DVD-R/RW and Blu-ray (ROM and R) drives following the creation in 2007 of Philips & Lite-On Digital Solutions Corporation (PLDS), a Taiwanese joint venture between Lite-On IT Corporation and Koninklijke Philips Electronics N.V. that wanted to leave this market. HP is a main customer.

New Lite-On's SSDs have good specs but usual ones today.

Where do they come from?
We largely suspect that Lite-On is not at the origin of E200.

For two reasons:

The company speaks about True Speed. It's a technology coming from Plextor, a firm also in optical disc.

It uses a Marvell controller, like all Plextor's SSDs (and probably also Toshiba's flash chips)

Lite-On have introduces E200 in the UK only. Just to test the market?

Corrections ( April 2, 2012):

We asked some questions to Lite-On but received later their answers:

Is E200 a Plextor's product with Marvell controller and Toshiba' flash chips?
The Lite-On E200 shares some hardware components with the Plextor SSD as you have identified, for example both are sharing the Marvell controllers (as are multiple other players in the market). However, it is very important to note that it is a Lite-On product, not a Plextor product. The two brands and product offerings are very separate. They each have unique capacities to one another (which leads to different performance rates for the user) and individual price points (suiting different segments of end-user).

Lite-On introduced it in the UK only just to test the market?
E200 is not a 'test' product, but instead a response to the growing SSD market. Lite-On have a long established and reputable brand name in the UK market for optical storage, and extension of its portfolio into the SSD market is a natural step forward for the brand, which will be supported by further product launches in the future.