Intel X25-E Extreme SATA Solid-State Drives

Targeted to Enterprise deployments, the Intel X25-E Extreme SATA Solid-State Drives (X25-E) are 2.5 inch form factor SSDs offered in capacities of 32 and 64 GB. Boasting a 2 million hour MTBF rating, the X25-E's leverage Single-Level Cell (SLC) NAND Flash memory and communicate with the host computer over a SATA (1.5 Gb/sec and 3.0 Gb/sec) interface.

As is typically the case with SSDs, the key differentiator to the drive (in addition to its high MTBF) is its performance. The vendor states that the drive can perform sustained sequential reads at up to 250 MB/sec, while sustained sequential writes are listed at 170 MB/sec. IOPS are listed at better than 35,000 read and over 3,300 write (both for random 4KB blocks).

The drives are SATA 2.6 compliant, including support for NCQ and the SET FEATURES parameter; and consume 2.4W of power when active with a "typical server workload" (.06W when idle).

Intel sells their SSDs both through retailers and to resellers, among them Kingston Technology Corp., who have now announced availability of the 32 GB X25-E drive (called the SSDNow E Series in Kingston literature).

Also available from Intel is the X25-M class drives, Multi-Level Cell (MLC) NAND drives that are targeted to desktop or mobile/laptop usages and carry a 1.2 million hour MTBF rating. Intel offers the X25-M drives in both 1.8 and 2.5 inch form factors with capacities of 80 GB or 160 GB; Kingston is now shipping the 80 GB 2.5 inch drive (the Kingston SSDNow M Series). The Kingston drives ship with a three year warranty.

Contact Intel or their resellers for further information.