Feb 18, 2011 09:01 GMT  ·  By
Intel's Elm Crest 6Gbit enthusiast class SSDs scheduled to arrive on March 1st
   Intel's Elm Crest 6Gbit enthusiast class SSDs scheduled to arrive on March 1st

Intel's solid state disks have always managed to offer high transfer speeds and improved reliability to its customers, so many will rejoice when hearing that the company plans to release its first enthusiast series SSDs on March 1st.

This new series will carry the 510 designation, is codenamed Elm Crest and VR-Zone even managed to get a picture of the retail box in which the drives will be shipped.

As far as the performance of the new solid state disks is concerned, these will get a new SATA 6Gbps controller which is capable of sustaining higher transfer rates.

In fact, Intel states that the new SSDs can reach sequential read speeds of up to 470MB/s as well as a maximum sequential write speed of 315MB/s (measured when using 128K sequential blocks over an 8GB span with the que depth set at 32).

In addition, the 4K random read/write performance of the drives is estimated at around 20,000/5,000 IOPS.

Judging by the numbers provided by Intel, the sequential read speed is nearly identical to that touted by SandForce for its second generation SSD processor while the sequential write speed as well as the IOPS count lags behind the SF-2000.

The 510-series SSDs will be built using 34nm MLC NAND flash and are housed inside a 2.5-inch enclosure.

As VR-Zone points out, at launch, the 510 series will be comprised of just two models, the first featuring 120GB of storage space while the latter has a storage capacity of 250GB.

Pricing has been established at $280 for the 120GB version while the 250GB SSD will be listed at $580.

A UK online retailer has already listed the two drives on its website and has priced the 120GB version at £227 ($366 US) and the 250GB version at £475 (about $767 US).