Intel improves performance, drops price on enterprise SSDs

The SSDs offer two times faster read and 15 times faster write speed over the Intel SSD 710 series, which were introduced in September last year, the company said in a statement.

The drives will become available early next year, Intel said. They will come in the 2.5-inch form factor with capacities of 100GB (US$235), 200GB ($470), 400GB ($940) and 800GB ($1880). Drives with 1.8-inch slots will come with capacities of 200GB ($495) and 400GB ($695).

The new drives are comparatively cheaper than the SSD 710 series, which were priced at launch starting at $649 for the 100GB version to $1,929 for the 300GB drive, when purchased in quantities of 1,000. The 100GB SSD 710 is currently priced at $476 on CDW’s online store.

In sets of 4KB of data, the SSD DC S3700 offers random read performance of up to 75,000 IOPS (input/output per second) and write performance is up to 36,000 IOPS. The SSD 710 drives offered read performance of up to 38,500 IOPS and 2,700 IOPS write performance.

The new drives are MLC (multilevel cell) SSDs, which store bits of data at multiple levels in each cell. The drives incorporate technology to increase the endurance of the drive over a five-year period, Intel said. The technology, called HET (High Endurance Technology) provides 10 full drive writes per day.

The faster throughput takes better advantage of multicore processors, with the ability to shuttle data faster between solid-state drives and processors. The drives consume up to 6 watts of power, and 600 milliwatts in idle, Intel said.