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Intel, the world leader in silicon innovation, develops
technologies, products and initiatives to continually advance how people work
and live. Additional information about Intel is available at
www.intel.com/pressroom.
see also:-
Intel
- editor mentions on STORAGEsearch.com
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- editor's comments:- Intel was a pioneer in
SSD market
history. But then took a 20 year sabbatical.
In the
early 1980s - Intel shipped an SSD based on
magnetic bubble
memory technology which emulated a 1Mb floppy drive. (I had one of the
evaluation kits.) But this early foray into solid state storage didn't meet
Intel's need for scalability either as a technology or as a business. So Intel
spun off the magnetic division in 1987 to
Memtech. Memtech
ditched bubble memory but became a pioneer in the rugged and military flash SSD
market (an example product was the
3.5" PATA
compatible Wolverine). In August 2005 Memtech was acquired by
STEC.
Intel's
troubled past with memory products (many of which it had invented - but
abandoned to Asian competitors) was probably a factor in delaying its decision
to re-enter the SSD market till 2007 - which
was 2 years after Samsung
had publicly declared this to be a strategic market. Within a few years of this
re-entry, however, Intel was shipping
2.5" SSDs with
performance specs superficially better than the
leading products
previously available from Asian companies (Mtron and
Memoright).
But
in the rush to develop these SSDs, and lacking vital end-user storage
industry experience - Intel produced succeeding products with undesirable
halo effects or
flaky operation -
which have seriously dented its reputation among designers of enterprise class
SSD arrays. |
Intel's recent SSD milestones in
SSD market
history
In September 2008 -
Intel launched a range of
1.8" and
2.5" SATA flash
SSDs with 80GB capacity, 70MB/S write speed, 250MB/S read and 85-microseconds
read latency priced at around $595.
In
October 2008 - Intel
started shipping the X-25E - a
fast
2.5" 32GB
SATA SLC
flash SSD. Read
latency is 75 microseconds and a 10 parallel channel architecture enables it to
sustain R/W throughputs of 250 / 170 MB/s. Random IOPS performance is
impressive with a 10 to 1 R/W ratio which is inline with the best
designed enterprise flash SSDs. Using 4kB blocks - random R/W IOPS are 35,000
and 3,300 respectively.
In his October 2008 blog, Linux
creator Linus Torvalds
wrote about his own
experience
with Intel's new SSD. Just as relevant are the many comments which followed
about better (and worse) products.
In December 2008 -
Hitachi and
Intel announced they were
jointly designing a new range of high IOPS flash SSDs with
Fibre Channel and
SAS interfaces for
the server market. The new products, which will be exclusively marketed by
Hitachi GST - are expected to ship in Q1 2010.
In January 2009
-
Kingston Technology
announced it will sell rebranded high speed SSDs supplied by
Intel as Kingston's
SSDNow E Series.
In February 2009 -
Solid Data Systems
published a Test
of Intel's X25 Flash SSD Performance (pdf). The white paper reveals the
degradation in performance in Intel's headlining SSD, due to weak garbage
collection. This is something which had been known about in the industry - but
not in this level of detail (except under NDA).
In April 2009
- a report on TGDaily.com
said that Intel
is EOLing its
Z-P230
SSD module which was aimed at the netbook market.
If you look at the
1.0" SSDs directory
here on StorageSearch.com you'll
see that 25 companies now make SSD chips, DOMs or modules designed to
fit into very small footprints.
In July 2009 - Intel announced a
process
shrink for its
X25-M -
SATA 2.5" MLC flash SSD. The new 34nm devices deliver upto 8,800
(4KB) write IOPS and up to 35,000 read IOPS. R/W speeds are 250MB/s and 70MB/s
respectively. R/W latenciy is 65µS and 85µS. The 160GB model is
priced at $440 (1,000 unit price point).
In September 2009
- Pillar dumped
Intel SSDs due to
flaky operation and
switched
to STEC. Maybe they
should have spent a bit more time qualifying the Intel product beforehand - or
done a better job at it?
Also in September 2009 -
Kevin T Crow, Strategy Specialist, NAND Solutions Group, -Intel shared his
SSD Bookmarks
with readers of
StorageSearch.com.
In
October 2009 - Intel
joined the growing roster of SSD
companies who have
announced
support for Trim functions. These benefit flash SSDs which don't have
internal fast active garbage collection. The company recommends users install
the firmware update and toolbox, and run the Trim function daily to ensure best
performance.
In February 2010 -
Intel and Micron announced they
are sampling the
world's
1st 25nm NAND flash memory. This gives 8GB MLC (classic 2 bit)
flash memory in a
stackable TSOP.
In July 2010 - the terrible tale of one
enterprise customer hitting
endurance limits
with Intel's SSDs
was mentioned in an
interview with
Fusion-io's CEO. | |
| how to make
"SSD reliability" believable |
Editor:- July 28, 2010 - StorageSearch.com published a
new article -
the cultivation and
nurturing of "reliability" in a 2.5" SSD brand.
Reliability is an
important factor in many applications which use
SSDs.
But can
you trust an SSD brand just because it claims to be reliable?
As we've
seen in recent years - in the rush for the
SSD market bubble -
many design teams which previously had little or no experience of SSDs were
tasked with designing such products - and the result has been successive waves
of flaky SSDs and
SSDs whose specifications
couldn't be relied on to remain stable and in many products quickly
degraded in customer sites. |
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As part of an education
series for SSD product marketers - this new case study describes how one company
- which didn't have the conventional background to start off with - managed to
equate their brand of SSD with reliability in the minds of designers in the
embedded systems market. ...read the article | | | |
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| Clarifying
SSD Pricing - where does all the money go? |
Editor:- one of the most
popular new articles published here on StorageSearch.com in recent weeks
is -
Clarifying SSD
Pricing.
SSDs
are among the most expensive items of computer hardware many of you will ever
buy. Understanding the factors which determine SSD costs is often a confusing
and irritating process. |
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And it's not made any
easier when market prices for identical capacity SSDs can vary more than 100x
to 1!
This value for money guide suggests simple tactics
to help you. ...read
the article | | | | |
