Santa Clara (CA) – Intel rolled out its second solid state disk (SSD) drive. The “enterprise-class” (=expensive) X-25 Extreme drive has less capacity than the previously introduced mainstream drives, but offers a much higher data throughput.

Based on single-level cell (SLC) NAND flash technology, Intel promises that the 2.5” X-25E SATA SSD up to 250 MB/s sequential read speeds and up to 170 MB/s sequential write speeds, which is about as fast as it gets these days. The drive is also capable of 35,000 IOPS (4 KB random read), 3300 IOPS (4KB random write) and 75 microsecond read latency.

The drive consumes substantially more power than its mainstream sibling – about 2.4 watts under load or about as much as typical 1.8” non-enterprise hard drives. In direct comparison with speedy enterprise-class 2.5” hard drives, however, the SSD consumes about 60% less power.

“Extreme” products from Intel have never been cheap and it isn’t particularly surprising that this SSD isn’t cheap either. In a 32 GB version, the drive sells for $695, which compares to $595 for Intel’s 80 GB mainstream drive – which is based on multi level cell (MLC) NAND flash and does not quite offer the speed of the Extreme version.

However, if performance is what you are after, there may be another solution: Fusion IO will soon be offering its 80 GB NAND flash ioXtreme card, which interfaces via PCIe and offers even more speed than the SATA II-based Intel SSD: About 50,000 IOPS and 500 – 700 MB/s read and write speeds. The Fusion IO card is promised to cost less than $1000 when it goes on sale later this year.