Intel Replaces Consumer SSD Line, Nixes SLC-SSD 165
Lucas123 writes "Intel today launched a line of consumer solid state drives that replaces the industry's best selling X25-M line. The new 320 series SSD doubles the top capacity over the X25-M drives to 600GB, doubles sequential write speeds, and drops the price as much as 30% or $100 on some models. Intel also revealed its consumer SSDs have been outselling its enterprise-class SSDs in data centers, so it plans to drop its series of single-level cell NAND flash SSDs and create a new series of SSDs based on multi-level cell NAND for servers and storage arrays. Unlike its last SSD launch, which saw Intel use Marvell's controller, the company said it stuck with its own processing technology with this series."
Generations (Score:5, Interesting)
Still, an update has been due for a long time now the X25-M G2 is ancient in SSD terms. Just hope the new controller is as reliable as the Intel one found in the old drives.
Comment removed (Score:4, Interesting)
Re:Still too pricey per gig for mass storage (Score:5, Interesting)
The $/GB metric is often irrelevant.
Bingo.
I know of a large company that is starting the switchover. They calculated that removing the loss in productivity caused by long OS startups more than easily pays for the cost of switching to SSDs. The math that you might use on your home computer doesn't always apply in the business world.
Re:SSD vs HD (Score:2, Interesting)
It took them 3 years or so to go down 30% in price, maybe. It'll probably take them 2 more years to drop another 30%, and after that 1 more year to drop another 30%. At which point they'll most likely hit a wall and they'll only drop variably 30% every year, year after year.
I speculate 5 - 10 years to beat the price / performance of conventional hard drives. That's the point at which your average consumer does not find any value at all in owning a conventional hard drive. Already, many enthusiasts are willing to make their main HDD a SSD even at current prices, there's demand here and it's going to drive up research and drive down prices as people thirst for more storage space at a lower price point with a higher speed. Many of those same enthusiasts still see value in have 2nd and 3rd conventional hard drives for cheaper and larger secondary storage. At some point their slow speeds combined with low price are going to meet or near SSD price points and consumers are simply going to purchase SSD all around.