Intel’s 710 SSDs get announced, bit too rich for the Christmas list (video)

Intel® Solid-State Drive 710 Series with High Endurance Technology Offers Extreme Endurance and function for Greater Reliability, Efficiency and Value

Intel debuts enterprise-grade Multi-Level Cell (MLC) SATA SSD Intel SSD 710 Series featuring high endurance, performance and reliability.
Intel SSD 710 Series uses compute-quality 25nm MLC NAND flash memory in 100GB, 200GB and 300GB capacities.
Intel SSD 710 with High Endurance Technology offers Single-Level Cell (SLC) SSD endurance with MLC value for optimal data center storage.

SANTA CLARA, Calif., Sept. 14, 2011 – Intel Corporation announced today its latest solid-state drive (SSD), the Intel® Solid-State Drive 710 Series, a purpose-built Multi-Level Cell (MLC) data center SSD and replacement for the Intel® X25-E Extreme SSD. While the Intel X25-E was in keeping with costlier but highly reliable Single-Level Cell (SLC) NAND flash memory, the Intel SSD 710 uses compute-quality Intel 25-nanomenter (nm) MLC NAND flash memory with Intel High Endurance Technology (HET) to deliver the endurance and function necessary for data center, financial services, embedded, Internet portal, search engine and other demanding storage and server applications, but at a better value.

“The Intel SSD 710 Series gives enterprise data center and embedded users extreme endurance and function, enabled by Intel’s High Endurance Technology in accordance with Intel 25nm MLC NAND technology,” said Rob Crooke, Intel vp and general manager of the Intel Non-Volatile Memory Solutions Group. “Intel SSDs are widely deployed within the data center because of the their performance, reliability and price. Our latest SSD product family offers greater than 30 times the write endurance of our current MLC SSDs, plus improved performance and new features, which include power-loss data protection and surplus arrays of NAND for enhanced reliability.”

The Intel SSD 710 delivers nearly the identical endurance as SLC-based NAND SSDs, yet utilizes the better capacity and more cost-effective MLC NAND. It achieves write endurance out-of-the-box of as much as 1.1 Petabytes (PB) and springs in 100-Gigabyte (GB), 200GB and 300GB capacities. Targeted for I/O-starved applications, the Intel SSD 710 achieves a 4K random write performance of as much as 2,700 input/output operations per second (IOPS) and 4K random read performance of as much as 38,500 IOPS around the full span of the drive, making this an acceptable replacement to an SLC SSD or multiple enterprise-grade hard drive drives (HDD). As well as performance, the Intel SSD 710 can replace many power-consuming HDDs with a single SSD to assist reduce data center energy costs.

“Cisco and Intel teams have worked closely, watching the necessities for servers within the data center – IT organizations today more often run out of memory, and want memory density in addition to capacity and function,” said David Lawler, vice chairman of product management for Cisco. “The Cisco UCS B230 M2 server offers the top density memory capacity, and is definitely one of the highest-density two-socket, half-width form factors powered by the Intel® Xeon® E7-2800. Cisco will offer the Intel SSD 710 Series to further increase the performance and storage capacity within the UCS B230 with two local drives offering 100GB each in September and as much as 300GB each inside the fall.”

The Intel SSD 710 also includes increased reliability and security measures. These include enhanced power-loss data protection to minimize potential data loss during an influence failure; added data security with surplus NAND flash memory to present system protection should a NAND die fail; Advanced Encryption Standard (AES) with 128-bit pre-configured encryption technology to offer protection to the information from an external threat or internal system issues and Temperature Monitoring and Logging containing an internal temperature sensor that may be monitored using two self-monitoring analysis and report technology (SMART) attributes to stop downtime.

Positioned for prime write usage models, the drive is also over-provisioned by the user to reach as much as 80 percent greater write endurance, creating a superior storage value. Intel HET combines NAND silicon enhancements and unique SSD NAND management techniques to increase the write endurance of MLC-based SSDs. Intel HET comprises Intel-developed firmware, controller and high-cycling NAND for optimized endurance and function for the heavy tons of data crunching and writing experienced in 24/7 data centers or scientific, financial or other high-intensity usage models. Firmware enhancements from Intel include optimized error avoidance techniques, write amplification reduction algorithms and system-level error management beyond the conventional industry Error Correction Code (ECC) standards.

Providing a far better dollar-per-GB value than its previous-generation Intel X25-E SSD, the Intel SSD 710 Series is priced at $649 for the 100GB version, $1,289 for the 200GB, and $1,929 for 300GB, all according to 1,000-unit quantities. It’s backed by a three-year limited warranty. To download the multimedia press kit visit www.intel.com/newsroom/ssd. For additional info on Intel SSDs visit www.intel.com/go/ssd or follow Intel SSDs on Twitter (@intelssd), Facebook (www.intel.com/go/ssdfacebook or communities.intel.com).