14 DAY TRIAL // After what can only be described as a long wait, Intel has finally introduced the 710 series of enterprise solid state drives which are going to replace the veteran X25-E SSDs released by the company in the fourth quarter of 2008.
Drives from the 710 series use the same 3Gbps controller as the one found in the consumer oriented 320 SSDs, paired with a newer firmware optimized for enterprise storage and with a special version of IMFT's 25nm MLC NAND.
This is called High Endurance Technology, HET for short, which basically means that we are dealing with a custom MLC memory that sacrifices long term data retention for write cycles.
Three models of Intel Lyndonville solid state drives are available at this moment offering storage capacities of 100GB, 200GB and 300GB.
These will be able to achieve sequential read/write speeds of 270MB/s and 210MB/s respectively, while their 4K random read/write performance is rated at 36K/2.4K IOPS (input/output operations per second).
Just like the consumer version, Intel's latest enterprise SSDs feature a power safe write-cache, redundant NAND arrays to protect against NAND failures and AES-128 encryption, but also get a temperature sensor and an in-rush current limiter.
"The Intel SSD 710 Series gives enterprise data center and embedded users extreme endurance and performance, enabled by Intel's High Endurance Technology based on Intel 25nm MLC NAND technology," said Rob Crooke, Intel vice president and general manager of the Intel Non-Volatile Memory Solutions Group.
"Intel SSDs are widely deployed in the data center due to their performance, reliability and value.
“Our latest SSD product family offers more than 30 times the write endurance of our current MLC SSDs, plus improved performance and new features, such as power-loss data protection and surplus arrays of NAND for enhanced reliability," concluded the company's rep.
Compared to the older X25-E drives, 710-series SSDs are available in higher capacities and have lower prices, as the 100GB version is retailed for $649, while the 200GB and 300GB models are sold for $1,289 and $1,929, respectively.
