Intel Enters Solid Disk Drive Market March 13, 2007

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Intel has launched its first series of NAND-Flash disk drives, following in the steps of Samsung and SanDisk but, targeting the low-cost computer sector, to start. The Intel® Z-U130 Value Solid-State Drive sports a USB connector will be integrated on the motherboards going into newer PCs, notebooks and servers, alongside other devices.

The drives come in 1Gb and 2Gb flavours right now but there are 4Gb and 8GB versions coming out in the coming months. By the end of the year, Intel is planning to have 20Gb and 40GB versions later in the year and by next year there will be 80Gb and 160Gb versions.

However, when it comes to these larger capacities, you can forget value for money since they will cost two or three times more than current HDDs. The Intel drive has a read rates of up to 28Mb per second and write speeds of 20Mb per second. The advantages of solid state drives (SSDs) over existing hard disk drives include faster boot-up and restore times, faster application loading, silent running, more rugged and power efficient. You will be hearing a lot about these drives and new notebooks using them in the coming year.-Martin Lynch

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