Intel's Latest SSD Faster, More Secure Than Previous Generations

Intel says its latest generation of solid state drive (SSD) products are faster, hold more capacity and are more secure than any generation of product before it.

The Santa Clara, Calif.-based chipmaker announced the arrival of the SSD 320 Series - its third generation of solid-state-drive based products, replacing the long running X-25 SATA SSD. The SSD320 series will be based on the 25-nanometer (nm) NAND flash memory, which will allow for advanced performance and higher capacity.

Intel designed new quality and reliability features into our SSDs to take advantage of the latest 25nm silicon, so we could deliver cost advantages to our customers, Pete Hazen, director of marketing for the Intel Non-Volatile Memory (NVM) Solutions Group said in a statement.

The SSD 320 series will use a 3GB per second SATA II interface and produce 39,500 input/output operations per second (IOPS) random reads as well as 23,000 IOPS random writes on its highest-capacity drives. Write speeds have been doubled for the second generation as well.

The company also focused on security for the latest SSD product lineup. Each product comes with 128-bit Advanced Encryption Standard capabilities. Intel says the new generation of SSD will be used on desktop and notebook PCs for mainstream and business consumers.

Intel's third generation of SSDs adds enhanced data security features, power-loss management and innovative data redundancy features to once again advance SSD technology. Whether it's a consumer or corporate IT looking to upgrade from a hard disk drive, or an enterprise seeking to deploy SSDs in their data centers, the new Intel SSD 320 Series will continue to build on our reputation of high quality and dependability over the life of the SSD.

Solid-state-drive holds a number of advantages of the the traditional hard-disk-drive including ruggedness, reduced power use and the ability to open a bottleneck in PC bootups and opening of files. It also improves a user's multitasking capabilities; like listening to music while working on a file with no slowdown. Even though they are still more expensive than their conventional counterparts, a number of new devices carry them as standard such as the MacBook Air and the various tablet computers.

Intel says an upgrade from an HDD to an Intel SSD will give users a tremendous performance boosts, providing an up to 66 percent gain in overall system responsiveness.

Solid-state drives continue to be one of the hottest trends in computing, said Bernard Luthi, vice president of electronics retailer Newegg.com said in a statement. Intel remains a top brand because of its consistent performance and extremely low return rate. We are sure customers will welcome the new higher capacity drives, and now is a great time for consumers to upgrade their PC to a fast new SSD.

The SSD 320 Series will come in 40 gigabyte (GB), 80 GB, 120 GB, 160 GB, 300 GB and 600 GB capacities. Pricing will start at $89 and go all the way up to $1,069 for the 600 GB. The products will be available at both traditional big box retailers like Best Buy and through online outlets as well.