14 DAY TRIAL // Initially, Intel was expected to debut its 520-series of SSDs, code named Cherryville, in the fourth quarter of this year, but it now seems like the chip maker has delayed the launch of these drives for Q1 of 2012.
The reason behind this decision is not known at the moment, but CPU-World has got a hold of an Intel roadmap that places the launch of this SSD in the first quarter of the next year.
Cherryville SSDs will use 25nm MLC Flash Memory, which should reduce power consumption and allow for higher storage capacities to be reached.
In fact, Cherryville solid state drives will spread the 500-series drives in capacity to include no less than five models ranging from 60GB to 480GB.
As far as the controller used in these drives is concerned, Nordic Hardware seems to believe that Intel will this time go for a SandForce SSD processor, but it isn’t able to say for sure if this will be the same SF-2281 that is used in other SATA 6Gbps drives manufactured by OCZ, Corsair and others, or if Intel will go for a new SandForce IC.
No matter the SSD processor used, this will get a custom Intel firmware, which we hope will improve the reliability of the drives.
If a SF-2281 SandForce branded controller would be used, Cherryville SSDs should be able to reach sequential read and write transfer rates in excess of 500MB/s, while the 4K random access performance should be rated at 85,000 IOPS.
A more specific release date for the successor of the 510-series is not yet available at this point in time.
Together with the Cherryville SSDs, the roadmap also lists the King Crest solid state drive series that is supposed to be released in Q3 2012, but no other information regarding these SSDs is available.