Intel ships enterprise-class solid-state drives

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On Wednesday Intel started shipping its highest- performing solid-state drive (SSD), the Intel X-25E Extreme SATA Solid-State Drive, aimed at server, workstation and storage systems. The 32GB capacity drive is priced at $695 for quantities up to 1,000. And a 64GB version is due Q1 2009. Intel’s latest SSD uses 50nm single-level cell (SLC) NAND flash memory technology.

"Hard disk drive performance has not kept pace with Moore's Law," said Kirk Skaugen, general manager, Intel Server Platforms group. "Intel's high-performance SSDs unleash the full performance of the latest Intel Xeon processor-based systems while increasing reliability and lowering the total cost of ownership for a broad range of server and storage workloads."

The product was designed for intense computing workloads which benefit primarily from high random read and write performance, as measured in IOPS. Key technical performance specifications of the 32 GB Intel X-25E SATA SSD include 35,000 IOPS (4KB Random Read), 3,300 IOPS (4KB Random Write) and 75 microsecond read latency. This performance, combined with low active power of 2.4 watts, delivers up to 14,000 IOPS per watt for optimal performance/power output. The product also achieves up to 250 megabytes per second (MB/s) sequential read speeds and up to 170 MB/s sequential write speeds, all in a compact 2.5-inch form factor.

(1 reply) #1 neufuse on 16 Oct 2008 - 11:39

would rather haev SLC then MLC memory.. MLC has lower life spans and hiccups when reading and writing simultaniously

#1.1 Sacha on 16 Oct 2008 - 12:36

neufuse said,

would rather haev SLC then MLC memory..

good that it uses SLC then

Intelâ€™s latest SSD uses 50nm single-level cell (SLC) NAND flash memory technology.

but i'd rather be able to afford it.

#2 Matan Mates on 16 Oct 2008 - 12:09

thats damn expensive.

(2 replies) #3 IceBreakerG on 16 Oct 2008 - 13:19

If those numbers are "accurate" then those new drives are fast as hell. I want one.

#3.1 Sacha on 16 Oct 2008 - 13:34

Very accurate, it would be atleast 240MB/s (they may have rounded up) and possibly varying as much as 2MB/s. Remember that these microsecond latencies allow (almost) linear performance gains with RAID.

Since it is flash, it is a consistent speed that is maintained throughout the medium.

On a conventional hard-drive, however, the speed is quite erratic and slows as you go towards the edge of the disc. Conveniently, they rate the speed at the center while the edge only achieves half that speed.

#3.2 Skynetfuture on 16 Oct 2008 - 14:21

Sacha said,

that expalin in most case larger drive = faster most of the time

in HDD case

#4 clotz2000 on 16 Oct 2008 - 22:49

I don't think companies will adopt these drives right away because of the expense, sure Google and Microsoft can afford them but for the extremely low drive space and extremely high prices I don't think most companies are going to look into it for now. 1TB Solid-State Drives for $695 then that would be different, heck even 500GB would be a much better step up from 32GB and who knows how much the 64GB will cost...

#5 Tikitiki on 16 Oct 2008 - 23:56

Once they're able to get the price down and pack more space in, these will surely be a real alternative to the current hard drives.

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