Yeah, SanDisk did came out with a new SSD family which is reportedly equivalent to a 40,000-RPM hard disk drive. The new disks are based on multi-level cell (MLC) NAND flash memory technology, establishing new benchmarks in performance and price-performance leadership in the SSD industry. The new G3 series SSDs are designed as drop-in replacements for hard-disk drives in notebook PCs. The initial members in the SanDisk G3 family are SSD C25-G3 and SSD C18-G3 in the standard 2.5” and 1.8” form factors respectively, each available with a SATA-II interface.

The G3 SSDs are more than five times faster than the fastest 7,200 RPM HDDs and more than twice as fast as SSDs shipping in 2008, clocking in at 40,000 vRPM and anticipated sequential performance of 200MB/s read and 140MB/s write. The G3 SSDs provide a Longterm Data Endurance (LDE) of 160 terabytes written (TBW) for the 240GB version, sufficient for over 100 years of typical user usage.

The disks are available in capacities of 60, 120 and 240GB, with per unit price of $149, $249 and $499, respectively.

The SanDisk G3 SSDs will be available in mid 2009.