Intel introduces fresh solid state drives

CHIPMAKER Intel has announced a refreshed line of solid state disk (SSD) drives. The 510 series SSDs offer fast data transfers and doubled write speeds.

The SSD 510 models are based on 34nm NAND flash memory and have fast SATA3 6Gbps performance, transfer speeds of up to 500Mbps and 315Mbps write speeds.

Intel added that the drives' speeds make them ideal for gamers, media creators, workstation users and technology enthusiasts, which is long hand for a lot of computer users.

"The Intel SSD 510 Series helps round out our SSD product line and was specifically designed for applications that require high sequential media transfers," said Pete Hazen, director of marketing for Intel's NAND solutions group.

"Whether it's a gamer wanting impeccable visual performance and faster game loading, or a performance-intensive workstation user, the new 6Gbps SATA SSD from Intel is not only significantly faster than the top 10,000 RPM gaming HDD, it's also faster than two RAIDed gaming HDDs."

These speeds make the drives the fastest consumer SATA drives that are currently available, according to Intel, and beat top of the line HDD performance by more than 50 per cent.

The drives are available now and come in 250GB and 120GB capacities. Their pricing varies depending on the number you buy and Intel mentioned damages of some $584 each for the 120GB version, when bought along with 999 more identical drives. µ