CES 2009

The widespread proliferation of sensitive data via USB thumbdrives demands a need for data encryption, and SanDisk is stepping up to bat. Their newest Ultra Backup USB flash drive uses both password protection and 256-bit AES hardware encryption to reduce holes in vulnerability across the board.

Sandisk's entire line of USB flash drives, including their Cruzer series, is also getting a much-deserved makeover. The new designs use a capless design and have a convenient LED that glows amber while the drive is in use. In addition, all the drives will continue to use U3 Smart technology that lets users run software applications directly off the key without any extra fussy drivers.

The Ultra Backup USB drive is offered in a range of capacities from 8GB ($40) to 64GB ($200) and will be available in Spring 2009.

(Credit: Corinne Schulze/CBS Interactive)

What can I say? I'm a big fan of gadgets that play into my inherent laziness. You may have figured this out while reading my various accounts of Slacker's Internet radio service and MP3 player. Now, SanDisk is following Slacker's line of thinking, albeit with a much more basic premise that involves simplicity and a low-cost device, rather than fancy wireless technology and the capability to tailor music to your liking. Instead, SanDisk's new MP3 player, dubbed slotRadio, uses preloaded microSD cards filled with 1,000 handpicked songs arranged into playlists. The device is clearly not for everyone, but for mainstream listeners who balk at the idea of spending their time tailoring playlists, it could be just the ticket. And considering the relatively low cost of the songs overall, the slotRadio could make a great secondary player for many people.

So what exactly is the cost? It breaks down to about four cents per song. Each slotRadio card includes 1,000 songs and carries an expected MSRP of $39.99. The device itself comes with a Billboard top tracks card that offers seven playlists--Alternative, Contemporary, Country, R&B/Hip-Hop, Rock, Workout, and Chillout--and will sell for $99.99. Of course, the catch in getting the songs so cheaply is that you don't get to pick them yourself, and they're also locked to the MicroSD card, so you can't transfer them to your computer or any other device (although the cards are expected to be compatible with with the Sansa Fuze). You also can't toy with the order of the tracks, though of course you can skip the ones you don't like. In my two weeks of using the slotRadio player, which included a preproduction card that had a mishmash of decade- and genre-based stations, I found that the selections were pretty solid mainstream hits ranging from the '60s to today. Going forward, SanDisk will offer cards geared towards specific genres--all rock subgenres, for example--as well as themed versions, such as decades and moods.

(Credit: Corinne Schulze/CBS Interactive)

As for the slotRadio player, our preproduction model has proved to be a pretty sturdy little device. It measures 1.9 inches tall by 1.9 inches wide by 0.6 inch deep, is constructed mainly of aluminum, and includes a built-in belt-clip, a popular feature according to SanDisk's research. A small black and white screen on the face of the player displays the station name, current track, next track, and an animated graphic themed to match the current station. Clicking on one of two arrows flanking the screen cycles through stations, while a single FF key on the right edge skips tracks. Dedicated volume buttons live on the left spine, and the bottom houses the standard headphone jack and a mini USB port for charging. The slotRadio includes an AC power adapter that connects to the included USB cable, so there's absolutely no computer required in order to use the player. The package also contains earbuds, a protective silicone case, a jewel case, and a media case for storing the cards.

The final physical attributes encapsulate the slotRadio player's few features. There is, of course, the microSD card slot, which can not only accept slotRadio cards, but also the album-based cards designed for the slotMusic player and any other microSD cards that you have loaded with music. There's also a power switch with three settings: off, FM, and play. Flip it to play, and your slotRadio card automatically resumes playback. The FM mode takes you to the integrated FM tuner from where you can set presets and scan frequencies. The device is compatible with RBDS, so it will display call letters and any other data (such as track name) that the station broadcasts along with its audio.

Now, the slotRadio could never be my main MP3 player--I'm a bit too much of a control freak for that--but I appreciate it as the lazyman's (or woman's) device, or as a secondary player for the gym. Still, the fact that the cards are static--meaning you can't update them as new music comes out--is a bit of a problem in my book. What do you think? Does getting music in such a cheap and legal way make it worth it?

Photos: SanDisk Sansa slotRadio

Both SanDisk and Samsung announced solid-state drives on Tuesday--though that's where the similarity ends. SanDisk's SSDs are aimed at Netbooks, while Samsung's new SSDs are for the high-performance server market.

SanDisk Gen 2 pSSD drives for Netbooks are available in capacities up to 64GB

(Credit: SanDisk)

SanDisk is debuting its new 8GB, 16GB, 32GB, and 64GB pSSD-P2 and pSSD-S2 solid-state drives at the Consumer Electronics Show in Las Vegas this week. Samsung's 100GB SS805 drive, on the other hand, is being introduced on Tuesday at the Storage Visions 2009 Conference, also in Las Vegas.

The second-generation SanDisk drives, designed as drop-in replacements for hard-disk drives, use the Serial-ATA or SATA interface. First-generation drives were based on a slower Parallel-ATA or PATA interface.

New Netbooks such as the Acer Aspire One and the HP Mini 2140 use the SATA interface. (Many ultraportable notebooks, like the first-generation MacBook Air and HP Compaq 2510p, however, used the slower PATA interface.)

"Netbooks represent the fastest growing PC segment in 2009 and 2010 yet widespread adoption of SSDs in netbooks has been limited by speed, capacity and cost constraints," Rich Heye, senior vice president and general manager for solid-state drives at SanDisk, said in a statement. "With the significant improvements in performance, capacity and low pricing, these SSDs are a perfect fit for the exploding Netbook market."

SSDs are generally faster than hard-disk drives, particularly at booting and launching applications, taking about half the time of an HDD, according to SanDisk.

SanDisk's drives, slated to be available in February, 2009, are built using the company's 43-nanometer Multi-Level Cell (MLC) flash memory. MLC technology generally yields lower-cost SSDs compared with more traditional Single-Level Cell or SLC technology. SanDisk manufactures the flash memory in Yokkaichi, Japan with its partner Toshiba.

SanDisk did not provide pricing information but said its 32GB modular SSD is "priced at parity" with 80GB 2.5-inch HDDs in OEM quantities. HDDs with this capacity range in price from about $50 to $100 (depending on speed) so this is rather vague pricing guidance.

Unlike SanDisk's consumer SSDs, Samsung's SSD is targeted at the very-high-end corporate enterprise market. Samsung uses more pricey (and faster) SLC technology since its drives are targeted as a replacement for the high-performance 15,000 rpm hard-disk drives that are the staple storage device of large corporations. These drives are typically used for applications such as video on demand, streaming media content delivery, internet data centers, virtualization, and on-line transaction processing.

Samsung claims its 100GB Enterprise SSD can process IOPS (input/output per second) more than 10 times faster than the fastest 15,000 rpm SAS (Serial Attached SCSI) HDD available for transactional data workloads.

The high-performance 2.5-inch enterprise drive reads data sequentially at 230 megabytes per second (MB/s) and writes sequentially at 180 MB/s, Samsung said. The 100GB SSD's performance is derived from an 8-channel controller, improved NAND flash and special drive firmware, all developed by Samsung.

The 2.5-inch drive will be available this quarter.

Samsung did not provide pricing information.