SanDisk unveils budget-minded Ultra II SSD that boasts speed, high endurance

The recently reviewed OCZ ARC series is no longer the most affordable solid-state drive on the market. SanDisk today announced a budget drive of its own, the new Ultra II, which is an upgrade of the Ultra Plus drive that came out last year.

The new drive will be available in 120GB, 240GB, 480GB and 960GB capacities and priced at $80, $115, $220 and $430, respectively.

The Ultra II now uses the upgraded nCache 2.0 technology that’s designed to delivers faster speed and higher endurance, compared to the previous model. Other than that it’s a standard 2.5-inch 7mm internal drive. It supports the SATA 3 (6Gbps) but will also works with previous revisions of the SATA standards.

Despite the affordable pricing, the new SanDisk Ultra II comes in a very generous package. It includes third-party software for drive cloning, antivirus protection, and security. There’s also SanDisk software to monitor and manage the drive itself.

The drive does comes with a short three-year warranty, however, which is the same as that of the OCZ ARC drive, and is much shorter than the SanDisk Extreme Pro’s 10-year deal.

The SanDisk II solid-state drive is going to be available for purchase later in August. Check back soon for its full review.