Intel with the announcement of two new SSDs X25M SATA is hoping to sell more of them into a price-sensitive market. The Intel SSDs for mobile PCs come in two sizes, 2.5 inches and 1.8 inches, and offer either 80 GB or 160 GB of storage. The 2.5-inch drive is called the X25-M and the smaller is the X18-M.
The 32GB and 64GB X25-E is a single-level cell SSD which is faster than the MLC products. Commentators have been expecting the whole range to move to 34nm process technology, facilitating a doubling of capacity and higher speed.
“Our goal was to not only be first to achieve 34-nm NAND flash memory lithography, but to do so with the same or better performance than our 50-nm version,” Randy Wilhelm, VP and general manager of the Intel NAND Solutions Group, said in a statement.
The new X25-M and X18-M can replace current models in systems without modifications. They are also drop-in compatible with similar size hard-disk drives. The X25-M is available in quantities of 1,000 for $225 and $440 for the 80-GB and 160-GB models, respectively.
Noticeably absent from the announcement is a high-capacity 320GB drive, which many were expecting. So why did Intel choose to hold off on pushing the SSD capacity envelope and instead produce drives that are direct replacements for existing 50nm products? Like most things nowadays, the answer has to do with the economy.
Rumors have been swirling around the Internet that Intel plans to unveil a 320-GB SSD in the near future.
Winslow said that he cannot discuss specific plans, but he did say that the 34nm technology lets Intel build the drives using 32-GB monolithic dies compared to the 16-GB dies in the past.
Intel plans to update its X25-E SSDs with 34nm technology in the near future, he said.
While the X25-M and X18-M SSDs, with their multilevel cell technology, are targeted at desktop and mobile PC users, some customers are using them for certain enterprise-class applications where their larger capacities compared to the X25-E SSDs are needed, Winslow said.
