Geil prepares to enter the SSD market

While Intel and OCZ have certainly pioneered the introduction of SSD to both corporates and enthusiasts, the market itself is expanding rapidly and we’re seeing many more companies interested in creating a brand in this area. Over at major international technology event, Distree, Hank Cheng was keen to explain Geil’s approach.

Since its creation in 1993, Geil has grown steadily as a supplier of premium memory products. Overall, it now has almost 300 employees – most of which have been focused on DDR memory modules. Now, it seems, that could be about to change.

The company’s solution to the SSD market takes the form of 2 models.

The S2 range is SATA II, with an emphasis on value. The S2 product comes in 60GB and 120GB options and will give you read/write speeds of the order of 280/270MBps. This is the sort of product you might look at if you want to give you tired old Windows PC an ‘Apple wake up and sleep quickly’ profile.

But with the latest ’520′ drives from Intel just hitting the market, competition for the top spot with enthusiasts will be hard to take.

Hank told us, “For our Zenith S3 performance products, we only use the very latest Sandforce controllers and these must be supplied with the GOLDEN firmware and original ICs”

Golden firmware eh.

The drives come in 60, 120, 240 and 480GB variants and will be around in the market in time for CeBIT in March.

If it was just down to 'a cool name and carbon-fibre-style packaging', Geil would be onto a winner

KitGuru says: From what we understand, company president Shu Feng Huang has a competitive spirit – so it will be interesting to see how well Geil can do in this market – and what other products they might be offering in the near future.

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