Intel Corp. plans to release a new lineup of highly-reliable solid-state drives for servers based on SLC NAND flash memory late in 2011, X-bit labs has learnt from a trusted source with knowledge of the company's plans.

One of the first solid-state drive (SSD) families released by Intel was Intel X25-E, which was designed for enterprises and was based on single-level cell (SLC) NAND flash memory. However, Intel has not updated its enterprise-class SSDs for almost three years now and concentrated on creation of solid-state drives with multi-level cell (MLC) flash memory. But Intel has not forgotten about high-end SSDs and will release new drives for servers that will not only use highly-reliable SLC NAND flash, but will use PCI Express interface.

Intel's code-named Ramsdale family of solid-state drives will include two drives with 400GB and 200GB capacities. The SSDs will be powered by 34nm SLC NAND flash memory and will utilize PCI Express interface. The source with knowledge of Intel's roadmaps said that the new highly-reliable solid-state drives from Intel will become available in Q4 2011.

The Ramsdale lineup of SSDs will be Intel's first to use PCI Express interface and will thus target high-end servers that require massive amount of input/output operations per second (IOPS). As a result, Intel's Ramsdale will compete against solid-state storage (SSS) solutions by companies like Fusion-IO, Seagate/LSI, OCZ Technology and other.

The next-generation solid-state drives will let Intel to enter the market of ultra high-performance SSDs with maximized IOPS performance. In order to address servers with modest requirements for performance and reliability, Intel will release eMLC-based solid-state drives code-named Lyndonville.

Intel did not comment on the news-story.

Tags: Intel, Ramsdale, SSD, SLC, Lyndonville, NAND