Before you bring an SSD to the checkout, it’s worth having another look at the interface, as the company ATP has introduced an SSD with yet another interface, internal USB. This SSD fits directly into the motherboard’s on-board USB socket, which is the socket typically used to attach additional external USB ports to.
Its SSDs feature SLC NAND, a transfer rate of 30MB/s and are vibration, water and dust proof. The drive is quite compact at just 28.2 x 15.3 x 6.2 mm, which plugs directly onto the pins on the motherboard’s USB socket. It comes in capacities of between 512MB and 4GB and all feature a 5 million hour MTBF.
With all the different sorts of USB-compatible flash drives, SSDs and HDDs that have been cropping up over the past few months, consumers might have been misled into thinking that there is little room for innovation in this area, at least in terms of design. ATP Electronics, however, seems ready to prove this assumption wrong, now that it has completed the development of its internal USB SSDs.
Source: Softpedia.
At a first glance, it does seem strange creating an internal equivalent of what appears like a USB pen drive, especially since it cannot run any quicker than what an external USB device could run at. On the other hand, probably the biggest advantage over USB pen drives is that is not something which someone can easily pull out (e.g. in a public place) or bump against.
With its limited capacity, we’re not quite sure what its intended storage would be, considering 4GB is barely large enough for a Windows XP installation. One potential use would be running Linux OS on internet café PCs, as some Linux distributions easily fit in 2GB to 4GB of space. Assuming these are as robust as they claim, it would eliminate the issues of failing HDDs when used in large numbers, such as Internet terminals distributed throughout an airport or shopping centre.
Further information including technical details can be found on the ATP website.
