Intel soups up PCs with SSDs

Stephen Withers
Tuesday, 09 September 2008 08:59

Business IT - Technology

"By combining our experience in flash memory design with our processor and computing expertise, we have added advances such as our parallel 10-channel architecture, proprietary controller, firmware and memory management algorithms that address write amplification and wear levelling issues to redefine SSD performance and reliability for computing platforms," he added. 

In related news, Intel announced plans to introduce a family of of single-level cell (SLC) SSDs for the server, storage and enterprise environments within the next 90 days.

The X25-E Extreme SATA Solid-State drives are designed to maximise the number of input/output operations performed per second. According to company officials, this will deliver higher performance and lower energy consumption, maintenance, cooling and space costs.

"[A]n SSD-based data centre will reduce overall infrastructure costs while increasing performance-per-square-foot by as much as 50x," they claimed.

Single-level cell technology stores one bit in each memory cell. Although manufacturing costs are relatively high, it delivers faster transfer speeds and reduces power consumption. Furthermore, it increases the number of times that data can be successfully written to any given cell.