Want a cracking fast SSD but don't want to pay a lot of money for the privilege? Then you might want to take a look at the new 3D NAND sporting SSDs which Intel has just released onto the market.
The company has unleashed a number of solid-state drives targeting different arenas including the data centre and Internet of Things, but it's the Intel SSD 600p and Intel SSD Pro 6000p we are most interested in – pitched at the consumer and business customer respectively.
The 600p is aimed at consumer desktop PCs and notebooks – it's an NVMe SSD that plugs into a PCIe Gen3 x4 slot, and Intel claims its three times as fast as a traditional SATA SSD, and some 17 times as fast as a hard drive.
Starting at a capacity of 128GB, that base model offers sequential read speeds of up to 770MB/s and write speeds of up to 450MB/s, and random read/write speeds of 35,000/91,000 IOPS respectively. But perhaps the most tempting element here is the price – you can pick this flavour up right now for around £60 (about $80, AU$105) online.
There are also 256GB, 512GB and 1TB drives, with performance rising through these ranks – the latter hits storming sequential read speeds of up to 1,800 MB/s and write speeds of 560 MB/s. The 256GB SSD is pitched at around £100 (about $130, AU$170), with the most expensive 1TB drive running to £350 (about $460, AU$600).
Intel means business
As for the Intel SSD Pro 6000p, this is the drive aimed at the business market, and it offers the same specs but is slightly more expensive and comes with added security and remote management features for the likes of IT admins.
Intel notes that these SSDs have an annualised failure rate that is eight times better than a traditional HDD, and they come with a five-year warranty.
The data centre targeted drives include the Intel SSD DC P3520 which is an NVMe SSD optimised for cost-effective performance and suitable for read-intensive applications in cloud computing, and the DC S3520 which is a SATA drive that Intel says is ideal for those taking the first steps from spinning disks to solid-state.
There's also the Intel SSD E 6000p series and SSD E 5420s series aimed at the IoT arena, which are PCIe and SATA drives respectively. The latter offers AES 256-bit self-encryption for security and additional data protection which means read/write processes can continue even during momentary power outages.
Bill Leszinske, Intel's Vice President and Director of Strategic Planning, Marketing and Business Development for NSG, commented: "This broad array of new 3D NAND SSDs expands the reach of PCIe solutions and offers a cost effective replacement for traditional Hard Disk Drives, helping customers accelerate user experiences, improve the performance of apps and services and reduce IT costs."
As mentioned, the Intel SSD 600p consumer drives are available now, and the Pro 6000p should be out shortly, with the other drives to follow.
Of course, later this year we've also got Intel's Optane SSDs to look forward to, with models aimed at enthusiast PC builders set to emerge first (so don't expect these to be wallet-friendly).
- Check out the top 10 best SSDs of 2016 in the UK
