Intel's 34nm-based 320GB solid state drive creeps closer to reality

Hankering for an SSD that's as big as your traditional HDD? So is Intel, or so we hear. In fact, we've been hearing whispers that a capacious 320GB solid state drive was in the works since January, and now those whispers have been upgraded to library-like voices. According to the generally reliable Golum, Intel's so-called Postville SSD family is well on its way to reality, and with them should come much needed price drops. The new series should top out at 320GB, with an 80GB and 160GB version falling underneath. Word on the street has it that both of the smaller two will be around $100 cheaper than the same-sized X25-M drives, though there's been no leaks on the 320GB model's MSRP. Still, Intel has a golden opportunity here if it'll just get these things to market -- a cheap(er) SSD with a brand name like Intel could blow the solid state market wide open.

[Thanks, Marius]

[YpoCaramel Posted Jul 18th 2009 12:26PM]

Mostly it's that they're not prone to having the disk just stop working because the spinning parts are messed up. Also there's no moving parts, so they're immune to shock damage, which matters for a mobile laptop.

[thedankone Posted Jul 18th 2009 12:15PM]

You act like that would be the largest SSD on the market...super talent already has a 512gb model. Yes...its from the masterseries not the faster ultradrive me series with barefoot controller (just like ocz), but it does exist.

[Hydra Posted Jul 18th 2009 12:49PM]

I have a 64gb ssd and i'm very happy with it. 128gb would be nice, but for the price, I don't see myself spending too much over $200 for an ssd

[hungarianhc Posted Jul 18th 2009 1:53PM]

I hate my Titan drive - would love to replace it with this one....

[Nitesh Posted Jul 18th 2009 2:17PM]

Let me be the first to say DO WANT!


But seriously, no SSD out there has matched the x-25 yet, i cant wait to see benchmarks on the 320gb model! I can however, wait to see the price :-P

[Gungel Posted Jul 18th 2009 8:23PM]

I don't agree. The OCZ Vertex II is about equal to the Intel X25-M on every benchmark except on random write performance and in real world performance it pulls way ahead. Programs start almost 1/3 faster on the Vertex compared to the X25-M.
For most people that install the OS and other static files such as programs only, random write speed is a no issue.
I guess it all depends what the disk is used for.

[TheRealMikeyG Posted Jul 21st 2009 11:46AM]

@sk.

No.

In REAL WORLD performance, the INtel drive blows away even the Vertex series OCZ drives.

REAL world performance is all about random read/write performance. This is where the Intel drives blow away ANYTHING else available right now, including SCSI and SAS drives. In fact, a single Intel X-25 will beat a three drive striped RAID array of even the fastest SAS drives (let alone any other rotational drives) in random read/write performance.

the reason SAS drives are still used in high end SAN devices is their ease of purchase, and the fact that a typical SAN has dozens of drives in it to overcome the small random access times of rotational drives by simply having more drives rotating.
If you took a SAN and loaded it with SSD drives, it would be an order of magnitude faster (if the controllers could utilize their speed).




Artificial benchmark scoring of sequential read/write performance is merely e-peen bragging rights.

[(Unverified) Posted Jul 18th 2009 3:15PM]

Oh wow, no way dude that is just too cool!

[BOGRASH Posted Jul 18th 2009 3:27PM]

TITS

[poky Posted Jul 18th 2009 3:40PM]

First picture and benchmark of the new drive http://nueda.main.jp/blog/archives/004532.html

[Gungel Posted Jul 18th 2009 8:38PM]

If that benchmark is correct than this disk is no match to the older X25-M or OCZ Vertex II or any other Indilinx based drive. 179MB/s is way to slow for a disk in this price range.
Compare: Sequential read performance for the X25M is 230MB/s and 256MB/s for the Vertex II.
I hope for Intel's sake that this benchmark does not reflect the real performance of this drive.

[TheRealMikeyG Posted Jul 21st 2009 11:47AM]

@sk
Again, only an uneducated fool would care about sequential read/write speeds.

the random read/write is all that matters in the real world.

unless of course all you do is store very large files, like complete DVD rips and Blu Ray rips, and do nothing else on your computer.

which isn't real world at all.

[looselycoupled Posted Jul 18th 2009 7:02PM]

This is great, and it will force others to cut their prices.. not to mention OCZ, Samsung, and Corsair will also be using 34nm flash pretty soon as well.

** And for all the people talking about how expensive SSDs are, you need to reconsider your perspective. Enthusiasts spend thousands of dollars on their PCs and laptops, and will spend $400-500 on a new graphics card. And the upgrade that will provide the greatest increase in overall performance during daily usage is an SSD. No contest. With a desktop computer, you only need a fast SSD for your OS+applications boot drive and you can pick up a cutting edge 64GB drive for about $200. For laptops, you can pick up a premium 128GB drive for about $350 or less. If you are sitting on the fence, trust me, it will be the best upgrade you ever make on a computer.

[(Unverified) Posted Jul 19th 2009 12:15AM]

Wewt now its only like 400 bucks! yeah like i'm really gonna buy that. i can get like 4 terabytes for that same amount.

[(Unverified) Posted Jul 19th 2009 3:06AM]

I think I will still wait until the first drives with TRIM and Sata 6gb are released.

[looselycoupled Posted Jul 19th 2009 3:17AM]

1) TRIM will be supported via a firmware update most likely on all Indilinx and samung drives. I believe OCZ has announced their support.

2) There isn't a normal form factor SSD on the market that can saturate SATA/300, so it is sort of pointless at this point in time. Similarly, if you want FAST, then get two OCZ Vertex drives and run them in RAID0. Blazing!

* BTW, SATA6 has been delayed and pulled off of new motherboards because of a problem in the Marvel controller.

[rudolfo2 Posted Jul 19th 2009 4:56AM]

I'll wait on 3200GB drive.

[(Unverified) Posted Jul 19th 2009 5:43AM]

Still gona wait for fusion ioxtreme pcie x4 SSD...its gamer/enthusiast model will be out soon and will be made bootable slightly later with an update....will blow these away as regards performance...to me thats what SSD is about...performance for you OS and most used apps....if you want more capacity just sling in a secondary conventional HDD.

[(Unverified) Posted Jul 20th 2009 2:38AM]

I also made the jump to SSD and bought an Intel X25-M 80GB as a boot drive - all i can say is WOW - 30sec boot times in vista 64 - you click and you blink and a program is open. You can OC what you want or Raid 0 what you want - SSD really is the best upgrade you can ever do your system. Whether its a lot of money really depends where you coming from - i will never look back . I even upgraded my laptop with a Vertex 120GB - Intel much faster though. With the new ones coming out prices on the old ones should drop a little i'd wait until then and get them

[(Unverified) Posted Jul 20th 2009 5:11PM]

Why does SLC cost so much more than MLC? From what I've read, MLC only cuts the number of transistors needed in half, yet the price for an SLC drive is often more than four times the price of a similar MLC drive.

Also, SLC is much faster and has about ten times the durability (write cycles) of MLC.

[ElCapitan Posted Jul 20th 2009 11:33PM]

Don't get me wrong. I'm hoping ssd's go down in price and get better. But, you say in 2 years we'll have drives that are better and more affordable than normal harddrives. Not to be old fashioned, but SCSI drives have been around for almost 2 decades, and they perform extremely well. They are also PROVEN to be reliable and very long lasting. A 15k rpm drive will be fast enough for just about anything, and will last a decade. I worry about the longevity of ssd's, and their sustained performance. I hope my worries are wrong though.

[TheRealMikeyG Posted Jul 21st 2009 11:55AM]

you must not work with SCSI drives in an enterprise environment then.

they are fast approaching the dinosaur stage and have for the most part been replaced by SAS drives over the last 5 years.

and SCSI drives were always too slow for enterprise storage or large SAN appliances, that's why people made SAN's.
Take as many drives as you can, that are as fast as you can get, and put them in one appliance that has the backplane bandwidth to take advantage of the drives all at once.

even when SCSI drives were popular, they were almost always run in large RAID arrays to get the needed speed out of them.

Now compared to IDE, yes they were faster and had much better random performance, however with the advent of SATA drives with NCQ built in, and more importantly SAS drives with BETTER NCQ support, SCSI became an obsolete dinosaur.

And they were not "more reliable" they were simply installed in better places.

which is more conducive to long hdd life, a pc case shoved under some random fools desk and sucking up dirt and crap and having clogged air vents until something dies from overheating, or a server case that is designed to move air through it all the time, in a well managed and CLEAN data center?

now you know why SCSI drives tend to last forever.

[(Unverified) Posted Jul 21st 2009 1:05AM]

question about ocz. do they even own any fab? don't they just buy the leftover nand from other companies? i would trust intel or samsung ssd more since they produce their own flash and cherrypick their best stuff for ssd.