14 DAY TRIAL // Intel, the world's leading manufacturer of processors, plans to enter the storage market with the release of its SSD flash drives. But it appears that Intel's strategy is somewhat different than previously expected, according to Digitimes. First of all, they intend to release their products at the end of this year's third quarter. Secondly, the SSDs will be launched as part of their upcoming Centrino 2 platform, also known as Montevina.
SSD hard drives are expected to become the industry's next standard, as technology keeps on evolving and prices continue to drop. SSD drives are gaining popularity among computer users, mainly because they provide better features than the current SATA drives. Most of today's SATA drives are featured with moving parts, which results in reduced performance, due to rotational latency and head movement. They also have a nasty habit of getting your data lost because of shock damage and the failure of individual parts.
Intel's new SSD drives are designed to bring to portable computer users a reliable alternative to the current SATA drives. Its new product lineup will be brought onto the market in two versions, which will be featured under the names of Client X25-M and Client X18-M respectively. The first version will have a physical size of 2.5-inch, while the later will be of 1.8-inch. The two SSDs will bring users a storage capacity of 80GB, which for a portable computer is rather decent.
The storage capacity is expected to increment, as Intel plans to increase the capacities up to 160GB by the end of the fourth quarter. In 2009, users will be able to acquire Intel's SSDs with capacities of 250 and above. Intel's hard drives are expected to be featured on their Montevina platform, which means that we're not going to see much of Intel's SSDs until the release of their second Centrino platform.