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Intel

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

• 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.
  
  Recent SSD milestones...
  
  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.