Although Intel has already formally entered the sold-state hard disk drives market, they do not have high-capacity flash-HDDs for notebooks and desktops just yet. Intel is currently offering only single-chip SSDs for pocket devices with 2GB and 4GB storage capacity. However, this situation should change very soon. Intel confirmed their intention to unveil a new line of solid-state drives for laptop and notebook PCs that will feature a storage capacity up to 160GB.
During Q2 2008 the company will launch 1.8-in. and 2.5-in. solid-state drives offering between 80GB and 160GB diskless storage. Moreover, Troy Winslow, marketing manager for the NAND Products Group at Intel, mentioned in his interview to Cnet web-site that SSD drives will boast very attractive features compared to their competitors in the field.
Nothing has been revealed yet on the performance of the new Intel SSD drives, however during a recent Investor Meeting Mooly Eden, Vice President and General Manager Mobile Platforms Group pointed out that the promising solid-state solutions will be 10-50 times faster than the mechanical Seagate Momentus 7200.2 HDD with SATA-300 interface.
More details about these intriguing solutions should be available in April at the next Intel Developer Forum, when Intel SSD solutions may also be officially launched.
An aggressive move into the laptop and PC notebook flash disk drive business would catapult Intel into direct competition with hard drive manufacturers such as Toshiba and Samsung that are trying to spark demand before their SATA-based offerings are released in the coming months. Samsung said it will ship a 2.5-in. 128 solid-state drive in Q2 while Toshiba has announced plans to produce solid-state drives ranging in capacity from 32GB to 128GB for notebook PCs by May.
Nevertheless, SSD will hardly become a widely spread storage solution in the next year or two. The thing is that the high price tag for the technology may keep sales in check for a few years despite their indisputable advantages such as high performance and low power consumption.
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