Date: 10/09/2008

Low-power solid-state drives from Intel for notebook and desktop computers

Intel Corporation announced the introduction of new X18-M and X25-mainstream SATA Solid-State Drives (SSDs) based on multi-level cell (MLC) NAND flash technology for laptop and desktop computers. This new kind of drive is very lightweight & rugged, that can replace traditional hard disk drives.

The main features of this device are listed below.

1. The X18-M is a 1.8-inch drive and the X25-M a 2.5-inch drive
2. Faster overall system response, boot and resume times
3. No moving parts and hence no-noise
4. Has no I/O performance bottlenecks, which is usually associated with normal hard disk drives
5. The 80GB drive achieves up to 250MB per second read speeds & up to 70MB per second write speeds

Intel also said, new single-level cell (SLC) solid-state drives called the "Intel X25-E Extreme" for server, storage and enterprise environments will be made available within next three months.

Price: $595 for quantities up to 1,000 (The 80GB version)