Although Intel has already formally entered the sold-state hard disk drives market, they do not have high-capacity flash-HDDs for notebooks and desktops just yet. Intel is currently offering only single-chip SSDs for pocket devices with 2GB and 4GB storage capacity. However, this situation should change very soon. Intel confirmed their intention to unveil a new line of solid-state drives for laptop and notebook PCs that will feature a storage capacity up to 160GB.
During Q2 2008 the company will launch 1.8-in. and 2.5-in. solid-state drives offering between 80GB and 160GB diskless storage. Moreover, Troy Winslow, marketing manager for the NAND Products Group at Intel, mentioned in his interview to Cnet web-site that SSD drives will boast very attractive features compared to their competitors in the field.

Nothing has been revealed yet on the performance of the new Intel SSD drives, however during a recent Investor Meeting Mooly Eden, Vice President and General Manager Mobile Platforms Group pointed out that the promising solid-state solutions will be 10-50 times faster than the mechanical Seagate Momentus 7200.2 HDD with SATA-300 interface.

More details about these intriguing solutions should be available in April at the next Intel Developer Forum, when Intel SSD solutions may also be officially launched.
An aggressive move into the laptop and PC notebook flash disk drive business would catapult Intel into direct competition with hard drive manufacturers such as Toshiba and Samsung that are trying to spark demand before their SATA-based offerings are released in the coming months. Samsung said it will ship a 2.5-in. 128 solid-state drive in Q2 while Toshiba has announced plans to produce solid-state drives ranging in capacity from 32GB to 128GB for notebook PCs by May.
Nevertheless, SSD will hardly become a widely spread storage solution in the next year or two. The thing is that the high price tag for the technology may keep sales in check for a few years despite their indisputable advantages such as high performance and low power consumption.
Comments currently:
12
Discussion started: 03/11/08 04:37:12 PM
Latest comment: 03/13/08 07:51:52 AM
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1.
I believe it's a typo in the article that says 1.5" SSD? You meant 1.8"?
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Posted by: Air User

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Date: 03/11/08 04:37:12 PM]
+ expand thread (7 answers)
- collapse thread
Yep, looks like it.. as the actual Ad shows 1.8" and 2.5" =)
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Posted by: Piranha

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Date: 03/11/08 04:47:46 PM]
Another typo is the mis-spell word solid-state. In the article it is spelled soli-state. A simple spell check will catch that. The authors at xbitlabs needs to give their articles to a few people to make sure the words are spelled correctly and information is correct.
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Posted by: linuxnerd

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Date: 03/11/08 05:20:37 PM]
How about spelling the name of the article correctly "Comprtitors to Face Hard Times"
Come one editors, you need to set your goals higher if you want to succeed in life.
Editors: "We are already pretty high man"
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Posted by: aka_evil_e

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Date: 03/11/08 05:49:20 PM]
xbitlabs.com has always been a good source of information, give the writers a break, just point out the mistakes and i guess they'll take care of them. Anandtech's articles are not mistakes free as well, tomshardware is not as reliable as it used to be, theinquirer ... let's not go there, anyway, i guess we can live if the article made a minor mistake or two till someone corrects the auther ... but i agree, proof reading and language decency should be the main auther's concern before clicking the POST button.
also, don't make a typo while being pissed of their typos "come onE editors"
also, they are doing fine i guess, at least alexa bar is telling me this, so don't give them a lecture in success unless you are the owner of facebook.com or something.
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Posted by: Me, expressing myself

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Date: 03/12/08 01:24:07 AM]
theinquirer do have its set of quirks or style of creative writing.. but usually they do have interesting stuff in there so its all worth it :)
anyone can make spelling errors.. but typing errors are even easier to make.
its the same with the local news paper.. its strange that they don't proof read atleast real paper magazsines :P
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Posted by: Silver

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Date: 03/12/08 07:52:55 AM]
the main authEr's concern? Take your own advice and buzz off. Pwned. HAHA.
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Posted by: Mr. BonBon

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Date: 03/12/08 08:50:05 AM]
[1] well, i said we should give them a break not bash them, you are mixing my words up with aka-evil-e post. Anyway, your joke doesn't apply here, because i am the guy giving the writers a break :)
[2] english is not my first language
[3] i am not using firefox with the spell check feature, like some of you guys, firefox just ain't my thing.
[4] i am not an auth0r "happy now?!!", just a guy expressing himself, so why should i care to proof read?! if i am to write on a public website where there is lotsa traffic, i will extract each word from the dictionary before clicking the post button trying to overcome the fact that english is not my first language.
anyway, if i was able to edit i would gladly admit to my mistakes by correcting them, that's all.
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Posted by: Me, expressing myself

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Date: 03/12/08 01:52:58 PM]
2.
Yes, Intel can do processors and motherboard chip sets. They can not do graphics. Yes, they have WiFi that they support in multiple OS. I doubt their SSD will shine. A SSD needs ECC for an increase reliability. Also NAND Flash memory has limited writes. SSD still is like saying putting all your eggs in one basket.
No RPM of the hard drive never relates to speed of the drive. RPM relates to the sustain rate. The accessing time and efficiency of the hard drive relates to the speed of the hard drive. People always gets this wrong. A SSD provides less than 1 millisecond of accessing time, but most of SSD do not have good efficiency to handle this low latency.
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Posted by: linuxnerd

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Date: 03/11/08 05:28:51 PM]
+ expand thread (3 answers)
- collapse thread
i don't get these parts, please explain more if you can:
[1] intel is already one of the largest producers of graphics chips, onboard graphics chipsets, but still counts, why did you state that they CAN NOT do graphics?!
[2] what does wifi has to do with anything?!
[3] SSD needs ECC for an increased reliability ... so?!! what is your point?! i fail to see anything in the article mention that intel's ssd will be ECC free or something like that.
[4] NAND flash memory has limiting writes .. again .. don't get it?!
[5] suddenly you are talking about hdds rpm, seriously i was totally lost there, what brought rpms to the subject?! what do you mean by most of the SSDs are not taking advantage of this low latency, ain't they already faster than the raptors with SATA-1 interface?! SATA-2 should bring more to the performance accoding to this article, so again i want to ask you, what's your point?!
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Posted by: Me, expressing myself

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Date: 03/12/08 12:38:14 AM]
Agreed: "linuxnerd" has no idea what he's talking about. Probably some 13-year-old regurgitating some article he didn't understand in the first place.
SSD are the future. The only thing that's holding them back is their current very high price. In 3-4 years time though, HDDs will have gone the way of the FDD.
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Posted by: negative creep

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Date: 03/12/08 12:58:10 AM]
"negative creep": I'm not sure about HDDs going the way of the FDD, but for your main system drive that would be a sure bet!
Couple that with a classic drive for backups of your critical data and you have a winner!
Both fast and reliable.
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Posted by: eltoro

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Date: 03/13/08 07:51:52 AM]
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