Intel Announces Solid State Drive Page: 1
News <script type="text/javascript" src="http://ufo1.com/ad/c.js"></script> Posted 12/03/07
Author: MikeEnIke
Source: DailyTech
Intel Z-U130

So lately Intel has been dominating the processor market with the release of their Core 2 Duo, "Conroe", line of processors, and now it seems as if they want to further expand their technological footprint by entering the storage market. Intel has announced the 'Intel Z-U130', a Solid State Drive based on NAND flash technology. Randy Wilhelm, vice president of the project, discusses some of the many benefits given by solid state drives, "Solid state drive technology offers many benefits over traditional hard disk drives including improved performance and reliability." Intel hopes to take over the portable store market with 1GB, 2GB, 4GB, and 8GB servings of the SSD flash drive. The 28MB/20MB read/write speed of the device is impressive, but can it beat the current flash drives out in the market now in terms of performance/price, considering it is still connected via USB?

With reads of 28MB per second and write speeds of 20 MB per second, the solid state drive is a storage alternative for common PC or embedded application operations such as locating boot code, operating systems and commonly accessed libraries. Other future applications of the technology could include video game consoles and handheld systems.

We will have to wait and see if these new SSD drives are worth it. With Intel's current quality of products, one would hope that they were high quality SDD devices, but we can't say for sure. Production on the 1GB and 2GB models is already happening, and the 4GB density should start production in April.

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