US storage specialist Adtron will next month ship a 3.5in Serial ATA drive based on Flash memory rather than magnetic media, the company said yesterday.

It doesn't come cheap, mind - Adtron said it expects the 8GB version to cost $1,900.

Not that the company expects its products to be used in common-or-garden PCs - it's pitching the part at industrial, aerospace and defence applications, all areas where participants have rigorous data integrity requirements.

Not to mention capacious wallets.

The Flashpak A35FB drive delivers up to 80MBps sustained read/write rates, Adtron said, and will offer 1-128GB of storage. The drives feature guaranteed data erasure to the standards set by the US military, along with write protection and password protection facilities.

The A35FB can operate to specification at anywhere between -40°C and 85°C.

Adtron already offers a range of 2.5in SATA; 2.5in and 3.5in IDE; 2.5in and 3.5in SCSI; and 3.5in Ultra SCSI versions of its Flash drives. ®