14 DAY TRIAL // Ever since the introduction of its first SSD line in 2008, Intel has managed to offer great performance to users interested in the speed of their storage solutions, so the company's third generation of solid state disks is eagerly awaited by many, a recent leaked roadmap suggesting that the drives should start appearing by the end of this quarter.
The first SSDs to make their appearance will be the 80GB, 160GB and 300GB versions of the X25-M series together with the 40GB X25-V, and are scheduled to enter the market in Q1 2011.
In the second quarter of 2011, Intel's lineup will be further increased by the addition of a massive (in SSD terms) 600GB model.
All five of these drives will be based on the third generation of Intel's SSD controller, also known as Postville Refresh, and pack 25nm NAND flash manufactured by IMFT.
Compared to the previous version of the X25-M, the drives will be able to reach faster write speeds as well as a higher IOPS count.
To put things into perspective, sequential writes have been increased to 170MBps from the original 100MBps and the IOPS performance has moved from 35K/8.6K random 4K read/write to 50K/40K.
In addition, the lifespan of the drives has been increased from the 7.5TB – 15TB 4KB random writes, specified for the second generation of Intel's SSDs, to 30TB – 60TB 4KB random writes.
Next to the consumer version of Intel's solid state disks, the roadmap also shows the company's plans regarding their enterprise SSD line.
The new drives are going to be launched in the third quarter of 2011, will come in 100GB, 200GB, and 400GB versions, and are built using 25nm enterprise MLC NAND.
Codenamed Lyndonville, the enterprise SSD line will carry improved sequential write speeds and a higher IOPS count than that of Ephraim based solid state disks. (via CPU-World)
