Intel Launches A New SSD, X25-V

Santa Clara-headquartered Intel Corporation has launched a new solid state drive called X25-V.

The new device is available for USD 125. Its capacity is 40 GB, and employs 34nm NAND flash memory technology. The target market for this drive is netbooks and dual-drive / boot drive desktop set-ups.

Salient features of solid state drives are that there are no mechanical, moving parts or spinning platters inside their body. This makes the drives especially useful in rugged environments such as netbooks that are portable and therefore liable to be used more roughly than are the traditional desktops. Further, the lack of any mechanical motion implies that responsiveness to system’s demands for read and write is faster than the traditional hard disk drive (HDD).

On a desktop, the SSD can be installed with the OS and favorite applications and fitted into the system. When booted, the desktop can then take advantage of the superior speed of the SSD to function, while data and files can be stored on the HDD. The SSD speeds operations at the time of boot-up, opening of apps and resumption from hibernation / stand-by.

Read more about the latest solid state drive launched by Intel, here.

Intel Launches 34 Nm SSD Products

Santa Clara, California-headquartered Intel Corporation has announced the launch of solid-state drive products that breach the 34-nanometer barrier for the first time. The earlier standard was 50nm. These drives are an alternative to the standard hard disk drives one finds in computer systems.

The new drive is called X25-M Mainstream SATA SSD, and is aimed at laptops and desktops. The drive has a capacity of 80Gb and 160Gb. The product is priced at USD 225 (for minimum quantity of 1,000 units, 80 Gb) and USD 440 (for minimum quantity of 1,000 units, 160Gb). The devices have a form factor of 2.5 inches.

Another version of 34-nm technology is X18-M, which too comes in capacities of 80Gb and 160Gb, and has a form factor of 1.8 inches.

A major attraction of the SSD is the absence in its functioning of any mechanically moving component. According to the company press release, the new X25-M operates at 65-microsecond latency, which compares very favorably against the 4,000-microsecond latency for an HDD. This translates into better throughput in read operations.

The devices are Windows-7-ready. A firmware update and an end-user tool are planned to be released around the time Windows 7 is launched, to enable users to optimize the performance of the SSD on the OS.

Read about the latest breakthrough in data storage technology achieved by Intel, here.

Sun Launches Servers With SSD Technology

Santa Clara, California-based Sun Microsystems Inc has launched a new version of its x64 servers, chip multi-threaded (CMT) servers and Blade servers with solid state drive (SSD) flash technology.

The advantage of SSDs is a dramatic performance improvement, with application response time reducing by up to 65 times. The technology takes up less space – up to 2.5 inch enterprise SFF, measuring 10cm X 7cm X 7cm – and consumes less power, thus doubling server throughput. This in turn brings down the total cost of ownership. SSDs come in 32GB user-addressable capacities.

According to the Sun press release and associated documentation, the Flash SSDs have a reliability of working nonstop for three years, and a MTBF of 2 million hours, and on an average have a minimum useful life of five years.

Sun’s x64 servers and blade systems are built upon multiple chip architectures such as UltraSPARC, AMD Opteron and Intel Xeon processors. These systems run diverse OS such as Solaris 10, Open Solaris, Linux, Windows and VMWare. The SSDs have been claimed to double the performance of these machines in terms of both time-reduction and lower power-consumption.

Read more about the latest launch by Sun, here.

IM Flash Technologies Begin Mass Manufacture Of 34nm Flash Memories

Lehi, Utah-based IM Flash Technologies, a joint-venture between Intel Corporation and Micron Technology Inc. announced the launch of the manufacturing process for mass production of 34nm NAND flash memory chips. The production has begun at the company’s Lehi facility in Utah. The company also has a manufacturing unit in Singapore.

The 34nm, 32Gbit multi-level cell (MLC) NAND flash memory device is targeted at computing devices with small form factors. The chip itself measures 172sqmm which is smaller than the thumbnail. Stacks of these chips can build capacities of more than 256Gb in machines with form factor of 1.8inch and less.

The breakthrough technology is expected to further drive the integration of solid state drives (SSDs) in existing computers, as users find SSDs faster, less noisy and more reliable than traditional hard disk drives. These chips are being manufactured on 300mm wafers, with each wafer capable of holding 1.6 terabytes of information. A 32Gb chip therefore can store more than 2,000 of hi-res digital photos in a camera, or 1,000 songs on a personal music player like an iPod. Digital camcorder vendors can pack in two 8-die stacked packages of these chips and come out with a video device that they can then claim records between eight and forty hours of footage. 

Read more about the mass manufacture launch here.

High Performance Solid State Drives From Intel

Three recently launched solid state drives (SSD) have won Intel laurels and awards at various fora.

These devices do not have any rotating platters, moving heads or delicate actuators, eliminating delays due to spin-up or positional seeks, resulting in better efficiency and throughput.

The X25-M and X18-M SSD storage devices target SATA-based laptops, mobile client devices and mini/sub-notebooks, and come in two capacities – 80Gb and 160Gb. The X25-M SSD has a form factor of 2.5″, while the X18-M SSD has a form factor or 1.8″. The SSDs clock a bandwidth of 250Mb in one second for read and 70Mb in one second for write.

The X25-E Extreme SSD is aimed for servers, storage and high-end workstations, and comes in two capacities – 32Gb and 64Gb. It has a form factor of 2.5″. True to its target usage, the X25-E clocks a bandwidth of 250Mb per second for read, and a scorching 170 Mb per second for write.

The architecture of these SSDs has been designed around 10 parallel NAND flash channels packed with multi-level cell NAND flash memory. Up to 32 concurrent operations become possible in these storage devices thanks to a powerful Native Command Queuing algorithm, thus delivering a higher than conventional I/O per second.

Read more about the X25-M and X18-M solid state drives here.

Read more about the X25-E solid state drive here.