New Intel SSD 310 Series Drives Are Super-Slim, Target Dual-Drive Notebooks

Although Intel's main concern, right now, is the forthcoming launch of their already super-famous Sandy Bridge platform, that's not stopping the company from releasing some other products as well, their latest development being a super-slim SSD drive series, the Intel SSD 310, that delivers a very good level of performance packed in an ultra-slim form factor.

Measuring 51mm-by-30mm and only 5mm thick, the Intel SSD 310 is a fast, ultra-compact SSD that brings flexibility, ruggedness and scalability to innovative form factors and devices, as it can enable highly responsive dual-drive notebooks, innovative single-drive tablets and low-power, rugged embedded industrial or military applications.

In fact, according to Intel, when paired with a high-capacity hard disk drive (HDD) in a dual-drive system, the Intel SSD 310 can improve overall PC system performance by up to 60 percent.

The Intel SSD 310 Series contains 34 nanometer (nm) Intel NAND flash memory and is available in an m-SATA form factor in 40 gigabyte (GB) and 80GB capacities.

The Intel SSD 310 supports SATA signals over a PCI Express (PCIe) mini-connector for on-board, compact storage in single-drive netbooks, tablets or handheld devices.

Weighing just 10 grams, the compact size also enables dual drive all-in-ones, notebooks or small-form-factor (SFF) desktops to help accelerate boot time and access to frequently used applications or files.

“The Intel SSD 310 Series is the first in a wave of SSD products we will introduce throughout the next year,” said Tom Rampone, Intel vice president and general manager of Intel’s NAND Solutions Group, adding that “with this introduction, Intel is offering full SSD performance in a compact, ultra-small form factor.”

Already shipping to customers, the Intel SSD 310 is priced at $99 for the 40GB capacity and $179 for the 80GB version, both in 1,000-unit quantities, which means that we're not likely to see these things become available for mainstream consumers anytime soon.