Intel to release its own SSDs later this year

Author: Tim Smalley
Published: 3rd April 2008

Intel's SSDs will arrive later this year.

Dadi Perlmutter said that Intel will release its own SSDs onto the market place later this year and claimed that they would deliver on the full promise of solid state disk technology, unlike so many of the drives currently on the market.

Perlmutter showed a demonstration on stage with three laptops: two with 65nm Core 2 Duo processors—one kitted out with a traditional hard drive (with a 7,200 RPM spindle speed) and the other with an Intel SSD—and then a third machine using a 45nm Core 2 Duo and an Intel SSD.

He ran through an automated video encoding task done in Sony Vegas and the difference in performance was quite astounding. The machine with the 45nm Core 2 Duo processor finished the task at a very brisk pace, and was closely followed by the Intel SSD/65nm Core 2 Duo combo.

The mechanical drive was orders of magnitude slower, as the two Intel SSD-equipped machines had completed the task even before it had started the actual encode process. Quite impressive, but details specifications of the machine were lacking, which makes me a little sceptical.

The drives themselves will come in both 1.8 inch and 2.5 inch form factors, while capacities will range from 32GB to 160GB. Intel says that the drives will help to increase system responsiveness and extend battery life at the same time.

We’ll be looking to find more out about the drives over the course of the day. For now, you can discuss these drives in the forums