14 DAY TRIAL // Intel may not be the best known provider of NAND Flash memory chips, but it still has a few solid partnerships to draw upon when it comes to maintaining what brand strength it managed to scrape up in the field of solid state storage.
Its collaboration with HGST is one example, the company formerly known as Hitachi Global Storage Technology and now a Western Digital company.
Intel and HGST have been making SSDs together since 2008 actually. They are now extending that partnership.
The two will be making SSDs featuring the enterprise-class SAS connectivity. The chips will be made from Intel's NAND chips and will be marketed and exclusively sold by HGST for three more years.
The drives are made for data centers and any other applications that enterprise customers might be thinking about: servers, storage systems, workstations.
The press release didn't mention capacities, but we suspect that some drives will reach 1 TB, maybe more. NAND technology has come a long way in the past three years after all.
If you're interested, you'll have to look for the HGST Ultrastar SAS SSD collection. Polish your haggle skills accordingly, since buying items in bulk will only go so far when it comes to getting a better price.