Posted on Tuesday, February 21 2012 @ 21:13 CET by Thomas De Maesschalck
VR Zone
reports Intel is working on the SSD 311, a new series of solid state disks designed for caching. These disks will arrive along with Ivy Bridge and will use 25nm SLC NAND flash memory, albeit in capacities of only 20GB and 24GB.
The two caching SSDs are expected to ship for $99 and $119, respectively.
Intel is retaining the 2.5-inch and mSATA form factors, but the 2.5-inch drives are now only 7mm tall, instead of 9mm of the 311 series. The SATA interface is still at 3Gbps, but the reason for is simply because Intel doesn't have a new SSD controller of its own. The reason Intel is sticking with SLC flash for its caching drives is most likely because the company is expecting a high wear and tear ratio on this type of SSDs and as such using cheaper NAND flash would mean that the drives would wear out quicker.
