Electronics manufacturer Toshiba announced the release of its Blade X-gale solid state drives this week. The drives feature capacities up to 256 gigabytes of storage. Per MacRumors, Toshiba’s part numbers are exactly the same as the components found inside the MacBook Air. The internal solid state drives also come in the same three capacities: 64GB, 128GB and 256GB.
The components offer a maximum sequential read speed of 220MB per second, and a maximum sequential write speed of 180MB per second. The 64GB and 128GB Blade X-gale SSDs have a thickness of just 2.2mm, while the 256GB capacity is slightly thicker.
The drives are available for sale to device manufacturers and bulk purchasers, meaning individual users will not be able to buy one direct yet from Toshiba.
Apple’s newly redesigned MacBook Air arrives with screen sizes from 11.6″ to 13.3″ with the smaller model holding up to 128GB of SSD storage, while the larger 13.3″ MacBook Air can hold 256GB of storage.
The availability of Toshiba’s “blade-type SSD modules” to resellers and other component makers means users who need to replace or upgrade the solid state drive in their MacBook Air will have an easier time finding replacement parts.
The solid state drives allow the new MacBook Air models to offer instant-on capabilities when returning from sleep. The hardware on the 13″ model is said to be comparable in terms of performance to Apple’s 13″ MacBook Pro, thanks to the speedy SSD found in the MacBook Air.
Stay tuned for additional details as they become available.