SanDisk has unveiled its latest solid state hard drives (SSD) which can now store 64GB of data.

According to the firm, its new drives offer a number of advantages over standard platter drives. They are up to 100 times faster at transferring data, use nearly half as much power and last six times as long on average.

"Laptop manufacturers have requested more memory capacity for systems that use Microsoft's Vista platform, which can require a number of preloaded accessories and security suites," said Doreet Oren, SanDisk director of SSD product marketing.

"There is interest in developing laptops for gaming, and the SSD is well-suited for the performance and memory requirements of these users.

"By offering greater capacities on our SSD products, we are making them more appealing to a wider customer base."

This type of hard drive is becoming increasingly popular as electronics prices fall and software from manufacturers like Microsoft support the use of the hardware.

Analyst firm Gartner predicts global use of SSDs in consumer and business notebooks to rise from about four million units today to 32 million in 2010.

Several influential industry players see the complete retirement of the platter hard drive sooner rather than later.

Pat Gelsinger, former chief technology officer at Intel, told vnunet.com three years ago that he saw SSDs in most computers before the end of the decade.