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PC makers have a choice when designing ultrabooks: include a large hard drive with a small solid state cache disk to meet Intel’s ultrabook guidelines, or just include a solid state disk.

The SSD-only option lets device makers build thinner PCs, because solid state disks don’t have to take up as much physical space as a hard disk. They also offer faster read and write speeds, which improves the overall performance of SSD-only ultrabooks.

But most SSD-only ultrabooks offer just 128GB of 256GB of storage space, because solid state disks are expensive… and because small-form-factor SSDs typically don’t come in larger sizes.

Mushkin is hoping to change that.

In January the company plans to bring a new 480GB mSATA solid state disk to market with a suggested retail price of $499.99.

The Mushkin Atlas 480GB mSATA SSD is designed for ultrabooks, where physical space is at a premium. The module measures 2″ x 1.2″ x 0.19″ and has a mini PCIe interface.

At about a dollar per gigabyte, the SSD is still considerably more expensive than a hard drive. But if you’re looking for an utrabook that actually has the storage capacity to hold your entire music and video collection, you might be willing to pay a little extra… maybe.