IDF 2011: Intel unveils lower cost, high performance datacentre SSD

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Intel today unveiled a solid state drive (SSD) aimed at boosting performance and reliability, while bringing down costs for enterprise datacentres.

The 710 Series features Intel's High Endurance Technology (HET). It's based on multi-level cell (MLC) memory, which offers the same high levels of performance as single-level cell (SLC) memory but at a much cheaper price point.

Indeed, the chip giant used a roundtable at its Intel Developer Forum event in San Francisco to show a comparison chart highlighting the cost benefits on offer with the Intel 710 Series compared to 48-15 RPM HDDs.

Increasingly, SSD is the answer to IT pros' questions.

The 710 Series offers a 98 per cent power reduction, according to Intel. Energy costs also come in at $211 for the new SSD compared to $10,523 for the 48-15 RPM HDDs, while overall total cost of ownership (TCO) is just $14,416 compared to $36,068.

"One of the things we're excited about is the tremendous momentum and excitement we see in the enterprise space around SSDs," said Rob Crooke, vice president and general manager of Intel's non-volatile memory group.

"Increasingly, SSD is the answer to IT pros' questions."

Businesses are striving for greater performance, reliability and total cost of ownership (TCO) in their datacentres, according to Troy Winslow, marketing manager of Intel's NAND solutions group.

"Datacentres are exploding. TCO is a huge benefit and a necessary component. As that information explodes you can't just build bigger datacentres," he said.

"We're also adding additional features [in the 710 Series] features that are critical for the datacentre. MLC will be replacing SLC and delivers tremendous value MLC is the future of storage."

The Intel 710 Series offers 30 times the write endurance compared to the chip giant's 320 Series SSD. What's more, they're capable of up to 10 drive writes per day.

The new 25nm flash memory based product replaces Intel's X25-E Extreme SSD. It's available in 100GB, 200GB and 300GB capacities priced at - based on volumes of 1,000 - $649, $1,289 and $1,929 respectively.

Maggie Holland

Maggie has been a journalist since 1999, starting her career as an editorial assistant on then-weekly magazine Computing, before working her way up to senior reporter level. In 2006, just weeks before ITPro was launched, Maggie joined Dennis Publishing as a reporter. Having worked her way up to editor of ITPro, she was appointed group editor of CloudPro and ITPro in April 2012. She became the editorial director and took responsibility for ChannelPro, in 2016.

Her areas of particular interest, aside from cloud, include management and C-level issues, the business value of technology, green and environmental issues and careers to name but a few.