PNY Introduces New Line Of Professional SSDs As Extras Become Essential

PNY Technology, well known for its storage and graphics products, has announced the release of its fourth generation Professional SSD line.

The new LSI Sandforce based SSDs will deliver read and write speeds of 550MB/s and 520MB/s as well as random write performance of 60,000 4k IOPS.

The ‘Professional’ series will be available in capacities of 120GB, 240GB and 480GB. Pricing starts at around $240.

Although it’s always nice to see another player enter the current gen SSD market, I can’t help but wonder if this release comes at a somewhat awkward time. Specifically, with Intel’s 520 series making such a big impact, it seems that many consumers may simply choose to overlook the “other” products.

Indeed, seeing as the prices of Intel’s mouthwatering ‘maraschino’ of an SSD have begun to drop recently, it seems that much of the low hanging fruit has already fallen, at least when it comes to product differentiation. Not to worry, this simply means that drive manufacturers will have to put that much more effort into swaying buyers to their side of the solid state fence.

One question that comes to mind however, is, if simply lowering prices is no longer going to cut it, then what is? Matching Intel when it comes to a drive’s warranty is an obvious but surefire way to pick-up new purchasers, as this could help nullify at least some of the reliability advantage that is, at the moment, exclusive to chipzilla’s marvel.

Another definite way of dialing up the competition would be to include additional software and/or hardware. When it comes to software, SSD caching would no doubt be the clear front runner, as many consumers would welcome this kind of added value with open arms. In my opinion, including this extra veneer of flexibility could tip the scales immensely, making the concept of “trading cache for cash”, just what the doctor ordered.

A different avenue to be explored is the inclusion of extra hardware. Accessories such as external enclosures and add-on cards come to mind, giving end-users more useful ways to utilize the drive throughout its lifetime. Perhaps an extra USB drive strikes your fancy (I know, you already have more flash drives than you know what to do with). At the very least though, I think we’re at the point where manufacturer’s should at least include a 3.5″ bracket as standard, regardless of whether a product is entry-level or not.

When it comes down to it, if it isn’t obvious enough already, in many cases, SSD company’s can no longer realistically expect their products to be a success riding on the coattails of performance and price-cuts alone. It’s true that we (I think most consumers will agree) want to see the multitude of SSD manufacturers jump through hoops in order to earn their paydirt. If they do, they may end up earning a blue-ribbon in the form of your always befitting banknote.

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