The company has opted to use a USB interface
rather than ATA or SATA, which would have allowed manufacturers to
readily employ the drives as direct replacements for rotating magnetic
disks.
Intel expects the parts to be used in "servers, emerging market
notebooks and low-cost, fully featured PCs. In addition, it will be
used in Intel embedded solutions for routers and point of sale
terminals."
Unlike the commonplace 'thumb drives' the Z-U130 Value Solid State
Drives come as small printed circuit boards designed for internal
mounting.
Intel claims high performance - write speeds up to 20M/sec - and high
reliability with mean time between failure of five million hours. "this
higher performing solid state drive is a faster storage alternative
that speeds through common PC or embedded application operations such
as locating boot code, operating systems and commonly accessed
libraries," Intel officials said.
Price is important for small storage devices, and Intel claims the
Z-U130 family will soon be cheaper than 1.8in drives of similar
capacities.
The 8G model won't go into production until the end of 2008, but higher
capacity versions are expected within a year or so.
Intel drives into flash market
Intel has joined the trend to solid-state drives based on NAND flash memory with 1, 2, 4 and 8G models.
RECRUITMENT & RETENTION REPORT 2013
HIRE OR FIRE? BUY OR BUILD2013 is well underway and Australian companies need to know whether they should invest in IT skills training or pay a premium for the people they need.
If you want to know which choices are being made in your sector, what skills are hard to find, which sectors intend to hire or fire and where the IT spend is going, this free report is must have.
Stephen Withers
Stephen Withers is one of Australia¹s most experienced IT journalists, having begun his career in the days of 8-bit 'microcomputers'. He covers the gamut from gadgets to enterprise systems. In previous lives he has been an academic, a systems programmer, an IT support manager, and an online services manager. Stephen holds an honours degree in Management Sciences, a PhD in Industrial and Business Studies, and is a senior member of the Australian Computer Society.
