Intel is in no mood to settle down its high-end client solid-state drive (SSD) lineup, the company is preparing a new line of SSDs in the 2.5-inch SATA 6 Gb/s form-factor that succeeds the SSD 510 Series. Called the SSD 520 Series, the new line consists of various size options that didn't exist with SSD 510 Series, improvements in performance and price per gigabyte, and a few new features. While the SSD 510 is available only in two sizes (capacities): 120 GB and 250 GB, SSD 520 Series comes in a lot more: 60 GB, 120 GB, 160 GB, 240 GB, and 480 GB. It's as if Intel is taking SandForce SF-22xx SSDs head-on at each price-point.

Sequential and random access performance figures are known to vary between different models (capacities) with Intel SSDs, but there's one set of them that we have in hand, perhaps it's of the fastest model: up to 530 MB/s read, 490 MB/s write sequential performance; and 40,000 IOPS reads and 45,000 IOPS writes random performance. SSD 520 Series drives make use of 25 nm MLC NAND flash memory, and a complete feature-set for today's client SSDs: TRIM, SMART, NCQ, and ACS-2 compliance. The drives are rated with 1.2 million hours MTBF, can operate between 0 and 70°C, and withstand up to 2.7 G (RMS) vibration. Production of Intel SSD 520 Series SATA 6 Gb/s drives are expected to start in the fourth quarter of 2011.