Intel 320 Series SSD with 25 nm NAND Flash Slated for 28 March, Priced

[btarunr]

Intel's 320 series solid-state drives (SSDs) are on track for a March 28 launch. The silicon giant is on a bit of a spree with its SSD product launches over the past few weeks. Intel 320 series, also referred to as "Postville Refresh", succeeds the company's X25-V and X25-M series, consisting of SATA 3 Gb/s SSDs in the 2.5-inch form-factor. The drives achieve sequential read speeds of 250 MB/s, and write speeds of 170 MB/s; Up to 39,500 IOPS random 4 KB reads, and up to 23,000 IOPS random 4 KB writes.

The only major change here is the multi-level cell (MLC) NAND flash chips used inside, which are built on Intel's new 25 nm manufacturing process. Other new features include 128-bit AES data encryption, enhanced power-loss management, and up to 1.2 million hours MTBF. 320 series is available in 40 GB (US $109), 80 GB ($189), 120 GB ($239), 160 GB ($329), 300 GB ($569), and 600 GB ($1,119). With the 320 Series, Intel intends to target the business/office and mainstream markets, propagating SSDs to key high-volume segments.



View at TechPowerUp Main Site

 

[Mussels]

hmmmm, i hope those prices are similar to what we get here in Au. 120GB at $240 is just in the affordable range for me, and its got room for a few games as well as OS.

 

[RejZoR]

For me it's a bit expensive considering its performance compared to SandForce drives...

 

[Gregsm]

Corsair 25nm ssd seems cheaper and faster.
280 MB/s read and 270 MB/s write
215$ for 115 gb and 169$ for 80 gb
I wonder what's the differemce... power consumption or reliability?

 

[Yellow&Nerdy?]

The prices are dropping painfully slow... But we are getting there. Once a 500 GB SSD only costs 3-4 times more than a 500GB HDD, I'll get one. Otherwise I'd just get the cheapest possible for a boot drive and use a HDD for mass storage.

 

[1c3d0g]

Hmm...I wonder how these Intel-based controllers perform compared to the Marvell-based 510's...any idea, TechPowerUp?

 

[extrasalty]

The 40GB should have been phased out already. And the prices should have dropped along with the 25nm process. Intel chose profit margins instead of volume, but they keep banging about "key high-volume segments". Considering those drives will wind up in a lot of notebooks as a secondary system drive, this greedy move will slow down the adoption considerably. As much as I like my X25-M G2 that I got 17 months ago for $250, I don't consider those prices fair and my next drive will not be Intel.

 

[chunky_lover]

hmmmm, i hope those prices are similar to what we get here in Au. 120GB at $240 is just in the affordable range for me, and its got room for a few games as well as OS.

Hah that's wishful thinking mate.

 

[Duckula]

Guys over at Expreview somehow managed to get their hands on a intel 320 series 80GB SDD (G3), and they did some test on it.

Here's the link to Expreview's test:
http://translate.google.com/transla...N&tl=en&u=http://www.expreview.com/14414.html

Accoring to the test results, the intel G3 ssd doesn't bring any significant performance boost comparing to the former G2 version. The controller of the G3's remains the same as the G2's, except it goes 25nm whereas the original G2's controller is based on 34nm technology.

 

[AsRock]

Guys over at Expreview somehow managed to get their hands on a intel 320 series 80GB SDD, and they did some test on it.

Here's the link to Expreview's test:
http://translate.google.com/transla...N&tl=en&u=http://www.expreview.com/14414.html

Accoring to the test result, the intel G3 ssd doesn't bring any significant performance boost comparing to the former G2 version. The controller of the G3's remains the same as the G2's, except it goes 25nm whereas the original G2's controller is based on 34nm technology.

I'll wait for there next one.

btw, you know there has been a new firmware this year for the G2 this year ?.. Lazzer408 posted on here some time ago of a performance increase too.

http://www.techpowerup.com/forums/showthread.php?p=2232059#post2232059

 

[Makaveli]

I think I will be getting one so I can move my current 160GB G2 into a netbook or laptop i've yet to purchase and drop the G3 in my desktop. Don't really care for SATA 6 cause my board doesn't support it. When I decide to do a full system upgrade so maybe not until Ivy Bridge then I shall bite there will be much better pricing by then anyways so its a win win for me.

 

[Makaveli]

Guys over at Expreview somehow managed to get their hands on a intel 320 series 80GB SDD (G3), and they did some test on it.

Here's the link to Expreview's test:
http://translate.google.com/transla...N&tl=en&u=http://www.expreview.com/14414.html

Accoring to the test results, the intel G3 ssd doesn't bring any significant performance boost comparing to the former G2 version. The controller of the G3's remains the same as the G2's, except it goes 25nm whereas the original G2's controller is based on 34nm technology.

That expressview review sucks balls they use the lowest end model I'll wait until anand or the techreport or TPU do a full review.

 

[Duckula]

Anandtech's review:

http://www.anandtech.com/show/4244/intel-ssd-320-review

 

[extrasalty]

Some from anand:

"Apparently the G2 controller had a number of features on-die, but not implemented in firmware. Things like full disk encryption and NAND redundancy never made it out in G2 but are here in the 320 all thanks to new firmware. And no, G2 owners aren't getting it."

Oh, and the failure rate per year went up by 50% (from 0.4% to 0.6%) but obviously Intel is learning from apple and applying their distortion field "it's the same".

"Idle power is a little higher than the X25-M G2 but both of our load tests show lower power usage than Intel's 2nd generation drive." except most computers spend most of their time idle, and in a laptop to have 3x more idle AND load power than the competition is a disgrace, let alone from Intel. The only good thing power-wise going for this is random writes at high queue depth.

And I have a problem with those specific results since all memory channels are saturated and the benefit of larger page size is huge. For anything less than 160Gb there will be a lot of disappointment.

Too late, too slow and too expensive (and not as reliable). Mainstream my a#$.