The 1.8-in. version is due out next month
December 22, 2008 (Computerworld) Intel Corp. today announced it is expanding its X25-M 2.5-in. and X18-M 1.8-in. SATA solid-state drive (SSD) family with a 160GB drive in a 2.5-in. size.
The X25-M product is shipping now, and the 1.8-in. 160GB version will ship next month.
Intel announced the 80GB X25-M and X18-M — it's first foray into the SSD market — at its Developer Forum in August and shortly after announced the X25-E for enterprise servers and workstations. The 32GB Intel X25-E Extreme SATA is based on Intel's single-level cell NAND flash memory and is designed to maximize the input/output
operations per second, while the X25-M is a multilevel cell memory, affording it greater capacity.
Computerworld reviewed the 80GB X25-M in September and found it to be the fastest consumer-grade SSD on the market to date. The X25-M even beat out Western Digital's fastest Velociraptor hard disk drive, which has a 250.2MB/sec. burst speed and 105.6MB/sec. average read speed. The X25-M turned in 256.7MB/sec. and 230.2MB/sec. burst and transfer rates, respectively. Intel said the data throughput on the new 160GB model remains the same as its 80GB predecessor
Current pricing for both of the new 160GB Intel SSD drives is $945 in quantities of under 1,000.
