Intel 910 PCI Express SSD series to arrive soon

Intel is getting ready to release "Ramsdale MLC", a new PCI Express solid state disk that will be marketed as the 910-series. The original Ramsdale was supposed to have SLC NAND flash memory, it was planned for Q4 2011 but for some reason it never got released. The new 910-series uses Intel High Endurance Technology (HET) MLC NAND flash memory made on a 25nm process, it promises to deliver write endurance close to that of 50nm SLC.

Available in 400GB and 800GB capacities, these disks are comprised of multiple PCB modules with a SAS to NAND ASCI controller and 200GB NAND flash memory per module. The main PCB has a PCI Express to SAS bridge as well as the power components, and the flash is connected via an ONFI 2.0 interface. VR Zone has some details about the performance and endurance:

The sequential read performance is rated at up to 1GB/s for the 400GB SKU and a massive 2GB/s for the 800GB SKU. The write performance is a fair bit slower, but hardly slow at up to 750MB/s for the 400GB SKU and 1GB/s for the 800GB SKU. As far as IOPS are concerned, we're looking at a read performance of up to 90,000 and 180,000 IOPS respectively for the 400GB and 800GB model and a write performance of up to 38,000 and 75,000 IOPS.

As for endurance, Intel is rating the two models at 7 and 14 Petabyte which should be compared to 1.5 Petabyte for the 710-series using overprovisioning, so in other words, these are work horse SSD's that can handle a lot of data. The card itself measures 69x168x19mm (HxWxD) which is a half-height PCI Express card and Intel has standardised on a PCI Express 2.0 x8 interface for both models. Intel is claiming a 25W typical active power draw, with idle power draw being 8 and 12W respectively for the 400GB and 800GB SKUs.