Intel has revealed some blazingly fast new SSDs, including models which are the first drives to utilise its 3D NAND technology.
Those 3D NAND-toting beasts are the DC P3520 and P3320 series of solid-state drives. The P3320 will be offered in 2.5-inch (pictured) and PCIe card flavours, and it's optimised for cost-effective performance, with Intel claiming it delivers no less than five times the performance of a mainstream SATA SSD, with 3.2 times faster sequential reads.
Clever combo
As for SSDs which will be plonked into Ultrabooks – or indeed desktop PCs – Intel also recently revealed the new 540s series which offers a combo of SLC cache and TLC NAND for what the company calls a good compromise between performance and value for money.
These drives will be available in both 2.5-inch and M.2 form factors with capacities ranging from 120GB to 1TB. The base 2.5-inch 120GB model will offer sequential read speeds of up to 560MB/s and write speeds of up to 480MB/s.
Intel is also producing the Pro 5400s range of high-performance SSDs aimed at businesses, again with capacities from 120GB to 1TB, boasting improved security including support for Trusted Computing Group's Opal 2.0 protocol and Microsoft eDrive hardware encryption.
And of course, further down the line we've got Intel's Optane SSDs to look forward to, with models aimed at enthusiast PC builders set to emerge at the beginning of next year.