How many times have I opened a pc/server and wanted to know the spec of the hard drive, but I cannot read it without removing it most of the way out.

Label them all over!

I know some sites have specs for the serial numbers, but not all. And sometimes there is no easy net access. Flip open machine, get hard drive label info, close machine.

i don't see anything bad with entel dominating SSD if they have asuperior product they should do just that. CPU market is the same way. let the best win.

to add to the batch a 15KRPM SAS/320SCSI drive to see if one can expect a meaningful fight from the HDD in the next couple of years, when these fast drives reach the consumer space, or in the same price category as of today.

Intel have been doing this shit for a while, and actually consider details like... needing to peer inside a running machine in the data-centre and read some details off the component label for support and/or maintenance plans.

Try doing that with a cool looking white on black label.

I'd be curious to see what's physically on the boards inside either of the SSD's reviewed here; the SLC for preference.

Anyone have any teardown links?

P.S. Please fix the comments so you can post without Javascript enabled. Please.

Simple math. If one drive has X probability of failure, n drives in RAID0 have nX probability of failure. SSDs aren't magic such that the failure probability is constant regardless of the number of cells. The same failure and redundancy formulas apply to any storage medium. A single fault tolerant array (RAID5) is X^2, dual tolerant (RAID6) is X^3, striped mirrors (RAID10) is complicated (X^2)(n/2), last I remember.

Er, these SSDs go *inside* a computer and are therefore not visible when in use. Hence, the author of this article made himself look a dunce by commenting on its "looks" (white on black or black on black for the label indeed - it doesn't freaking matter - everything looks black on black inside a machine...).

BTW, isn't this article covering "old news"? I sure read some posting by Linus Torvalds that he was given one of these Intel SSDs months ago. Ah yes, here it is:

http://torvalds-family.blogspot.com/2008/10/so-i-got-one-of-new-intel-ssds.html

Have the editorial standards at the INQ reached the level of highschool/Slashdot?
-Vi$ta? Really?
-The drives "doesn't look good": hopefully you're not using it as a hood ornament.

"...usually, standard HDD drive reliability problems go up with adding more drives to striped RAID0 setups".. no, the probabiliy of a failure goes up, not the independent reliability of each drive.

Ugh... I don't mind the info being useless from time to time, as long as its well written.

Intel and Google FTW!!!!