Long known as the world’s most successful microchip manufacturer, it looks like Intel will be throwing their hat into a new ring later this year. The company plans to enter the SSD market, churning out 80-160 GB solid state drives beginning Q2 of this year. The company hopes to enter into direct competition with more reputable companies such as Samsung, with the intention of slowly driving down market prices through competition. Intel will make both 1.8″ and 2.5″ drives. Says Intel:
“We will be supplementing our product line with a SATA offering,”said Troy Windslow of Intel. Serial ATA, or SATA, is an interface used in high-performance hard disk drives. Intel’s products will be based on the SATA II specification that offers speeds of 3 gigabits (Gb) per second. Samsung is now shipping 64GB SSDs to Dell using the same technology.
“When Intel launches its…products, you’ll see that not all SSDs are created equal,” Winslow said. “The way the SSDs are architected, the way the controller and firmware operates makes a huge difference,” he said, referring to the chip (controller) that manages the SSD and software (firmware) that the controller uses.
As far as we’re concerned, this is a good move, as cheaper flash memory means more access for consumer-level devices.
