Thomas Weisel Partners analyst Kevin Cassidy late Thursday upped his rating on Smart Modular Technologies (SMOD) to Overweight from Equal Weight, setting a price target of $5.

“In our view, SMOD’s recent share price pull back has created an opportunity for investors to own the improving core enterprise memory subsystem business at a reasonable valuation without paying a premium for the high growth SSD potential,” he writes. Cassidy says he thinks the company’s core memory subsystem assembly and logistics business could provide upside to current estimates.

Not least, Cassidy says that the company’s enterprise SSD product development efforts could drive material revenue and profits in 2010.

Interestingly, SMOD on Thursday jumped 50 cents, or 14.4%, to $3.98, no incremental news.