Santa Clara (CA) – Intel is expected to unveil new products within its solid state disk (SSD) drive family. Following its joint venture partner Micron, which recently introduced new RealSSD drives, Intel-branded versions should make their debut during IDF next week.     

Chinese website Expreview got its hands on some of the details of Intel's SSD line-up that will target the consumer space, while Micron primarily aims for enterprise customers at this time. According to the site, Intel will release SSDs with the usual 32 and 64 GB capacity, but the company will also offer rather unusual 80 and 160 GB versions.

The drives will be available in 1.8" and 2.5" format factors and offer a bandwidth of 240 MB/s (read) and 70-170 MB/s (write).

Common sense suggests that these SSDs will be rather expensive, but if we believe the chatter in the industry, it seems that especially the big boys are planning a major shot at this market segment. Mainstream SSDs are still about one year away, but we expect 64 GB SSDs to drop well below $200 and 128 GB SSDs into the $300 neighborhood.  

You can read more details about Intel-branded SSDs here.

bad link at the end.

Aug 15, 2008 00:35     

I will be getting a 80gb or 160gb 1.8" if the priec is right. (eee 901)
mtotho report abuse vote down vote up Votes: +1

Hmmm, those prices aren't half bad anymore...

Aug 15, 2008 02:38     

It's about damn time the prices started going down.
Henrik Gustavsson report abuse vote down vote up Votes: -1

still not worth it

Aug 15, 2008 04:58     

Even at 128GB for $300 that is still too expensive. Get a 300GB Velociraptor for $300. Over twice the space and it beats SSD in most benchmarks. Yes the SSD is faster in cases(not many), and yes it saves more power, but NOT enough to justify that cost. hell you can even get into a $300gb SAS for about $150 more.
crawgsx report abuse vote down vote up Votes: +1

Re Bad link - just remove the / from the end of th...

Aug 15, 2008 05:19     

Re Bad link - just remove the / from the end of the URL
Jimbo report abuse vote down vote up Votes: +0

Re Bad Link

Aug 15, 2008 05:21     

Damn this web form! :-) Remove the 'forward-slash - percent twenty' from the end of the URL
Jimbo report abuse vote down vote up Votes: +0

Speed is nice, but...

Aug 15, 2008 08:55     

...I dont trust my data to flash cells that wear out. Not that mechanical hard disk drives dont wear, but they do not require wear leveling algorithms. Flash, as a media, is not dependable enough.
Scott report abuse vote down vote up Votes: -4

RE Speed is nice, but ...

Aug 15, 2008 10:37     

You're kidding right? You think because there are wear leveling algorithms they are unsafe? What FUD... The lifetime on these latest SDDs are far more than hard drives. If there is anything that isn't reliable, it's a hard drive. I'm lucky to get a HD to last more than a couple of years. Have you ever heard of backing. That's something you should be doing with hard drives and SSDs. >I dont trust my data to flash cells that wear out. >Not that mechanical hard disk drives dont wear, >but they do not require wear leveling algorithms. >Flash, as a media, is not dependable enough.

Dave report abuse vote down vote up Votes: +1

32gb flash drive

Aug 16, 2008 02:21     

perhaps 64gb flash drive is already on the way why bother with ssd?!
Ol report abuse vote down vote up Votes: +0