Intel is using 34nm NAND flash memory chips on its new SSD

The price of solid state drives could be significantly reduced by Intel due to the use of new chips.

Intel equips its new solid state drives with more advanced NAND flash memory chips that are 34 nanometers in terms of manufacturing technology, compared to their 50-nanometer counterparts.

The 2,5-inch, next-generation X25-M SSDs come in 80 and 160 GB versions with a SATA 3.0 Gb / s connector, Intel has an MTBF life of 1,2 million operating hours and a speed of 250 MB / s. is designed to illustrate read and write speeds of 70 MB / s. Although no progress has been made in this regard, the drives' IOPS (number of input and output operations per second) performance has improved and latency times have been reduced: when writing 4 KB blocks, the new drives have 6600 (80 GB) and 8600 (160 GB) IOPS are capable of reading and writing delay times of 65 and 85 ms. In contrast, the predecessors know 3300 IOPS and have delay rates of 85 and 115 ms, respectively.

Fortunately, the more modern production technology is also reflected in the price: the 80 GB X25-M costs $225, and the version offering twice as much storage capacity costs $440, which means a price reduction of nearly 33%, since for the "identical" models of the previous generation $ 335 and $ 660 asked Intel.

Incidentally, Intel will upgrade its 1,8-inch SSDs at the end of the third quarter, and a 320GB version will be available this year.