Intel Launches a Pair of 34nm SSDs With 450 MB/s Speeds

Intel may not have entered the SSD market overly long ago, and it may not have had experience in the storage industry when it did, but it doesn't seem to lack the determination to succeed, as proven by how it has completed its newest type of such devices.

Solid state drives use NAND Flash memory chips in order to store data and, while they do not match hard disk drives in terms of capacity, they are well ahead as far as speed goes.

Something that characterizes SSDs is that their prowess and energy efficiency depends on the type of chips they are built out of.

Basically, the more advanced the manufacturing process, the better the unit, meaning better capacity and transfer rates both.

That said, Intel just finished making a pair of 34nm 2.5-inch SSDs, codenamed Emcrest, as revealed by a report made by Fudzilla.

Set to be marketed under the Intel 510 brand, they are compatible with the SATA III 6 Gbps connectivity interface.

It is this connection that gives them up to 20K IOPs at 4KB read and 4K IOPs at 4KB write, while sustained transfer rates can go as high as 450 MB/s when reading and 300 MB/s when writing.

One of the units has a capacity of 250 GB and is said to be on track for February availability, when it may or may not be seen as appealing because of its price of $579.

Slated to debut around the same time, the other drive is limited to 120 GB, had a price of $279 and is otherwise similar to its bigger sibling.

It will be interesting to see just how these 34nm-based newcomers fare against the many other more or less new SSDs, especially the more capable models based on the latest generation of SandForce controller chips.