14 DAY TRIAL // Intel has recently added a new version of the popular 320 Series of solid state drives to its offer, which is now shipped with an extensive bundle including a SATA to USB 3.0 adapter for turning the SSD into a portable storage device.
The new retail version carries the B5 designation, which replaces the K5 suffix found in the product number of the regular drive.
Compared to its predecessors, the new B5 revision comes bundles not just with the regular SATA cable, IDE to SATA power cable, screwdriver and mounting bracket, but also includes a SATA to USB 3.0 adapter.
Paired together with the shock-proof blue silicon case, that is also found in the package, this can be used for turning the 320 Series SSD into a fast portable storage device.
Intel's 320 SSD Series is comprised of six models with capacities ranging from 40GB to 600GB and all these drives use the SATA 3Gbps interface.
Their performance varies according to drive capacity, but the fastest SSDs are able to reach sequential read and write speeds of 270MB/s and 220MB/s, respectively as well as 39,500 input/output operations per second (IOPS) random reads and 23,000 IOPS random writes.
Since the second half of last month, the drives are backed up by one of the largest warranties in the industry which spans over no less than five years.
The new B5 series drives are available for purchase right now from various online retailers, including Newegg, which carries both the K5 and the B5 versions of the Intel 320 Series SSDs.
The pricing differences depend on the model of the drive chosen, but these are really small and sometime even favor the B5 SSDs. Once such example is the 80GB drive where the SATA to USB 3.0 B5 version retails for $184.99, while the regular K5 model is listed at $194.49. (via Expreview)
