Lexar's 8GB ExpressCard SSD sneaks on the scene

While Lexar does a fine job competing in the flash memory arena, it appears that the outfit is giving it a go in the solid state disc realm as well. According a marginally descriptive product page, Lexar is offering up an 8GB ExpressCard SSD, which should go nicely above that 120GB PCMCIA NAND drive as you attempt to cram more storage into peripheral slots than inside your laptop's casing. Moreover, the device features a peak data transfer rate of 250Mbps, and while it doesn't appear to be available for shipment just yet, it'll run you a penny under $200 when it formally launches.

[Thanks, Anthony P.]

[Jeff @ Apr 20th 2007 10:40AM]

Still can't boot to it.

[Brian @ Apr 20th 2007 10:15AM]

Anyone know if you can boot from ExpressCards? If so, I'd be tempted to pick one of these up.

[adam_anon @ Apr 20th 2007 11:22AM]

Yeah, I'd like to see one in standard 2.5" form with SATAII so it could be used a a system disk in a laptop. Adam

[Chuckles McGee @ Apr 20th 2007 11:38AM]

I could imagine someone rigging the C: drive with a command to pull info from the ExpressCard's partition. Might add a few seconds, but hey, it's alright.

I personally think these are one of those "in-between" products that fill an uncomfortable gap between product standards- like EDTV, hybrid drives, quadrophonic sound, laser discs- those somewhat ambitious, but not quite too ambitious products that may gain a bit of acceptance, never take off, but nonetheless serve as a bridge to the next widely-accepted "standard".

[John Stracke @ Apr 20th 2007 1:33PM]

No big surprise here. Since ExpressCard slots include USB access, they probably just took a USB flash drive and rearranged it to fit inside the slot. Designing a PCI Express device just wouldn't make much sense.

[morcheeba @ Apr 20th 2007 1:43PM]

I agree with what John Stracke said -- it's probably USB. If so, then it could be bootable:
http://www.tuaw.com/2006/02/08/intel-macs-can-boot-from-usb-drives/