Intel Announces New 320 SSD Series

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scook9

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Shame these weren't out last to beat the sandforce first gen stuff

Now everyone cares only about Sata 3 :(

If I had not just gotten a pair of G2 120GB drives I would have gotten these instead
 

jprahman

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I don't quite get why these drives don't support SATA III. I mean the listed reason is compatibility, but SATA III drives were compatible with SATA II controllers.
 
The bulk of the Intel advertising indicates the 320 is a "mid-level" ssd and the target audience consists of users with SATA II (3 Gb/s) systems. Looks to me like Intel knows where their "bread and butter" is. At 1 billion pc's there is an awful lot.
 

ap3x

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[citation][nom]thrasher32[/nom]$1069 for the 600GB version??? OUCH[/citation]

Huh, that is a great price for 600gig SSD. Are you commenting that that is just allot of money in general or a high price for a SSD. I have never seen a decent performing SSD at 500+ gig for less than that?
 

jprahman

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I understand that, but since SATA III drives are backwards compatible with SATA II systems, then why not have the drive support SATA III for those that do have SATA III systems. I mean I can't think of a good reason other than a possible small increase in cost not to make the drive SATA III.
 

zerapio

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[citation][nom]jprahman[/nom]I understand that, but since SATA III drives are backwards compatible with SATA II systems, then why not have the drive support SATA III for those that do have SATA III systems. I mean I can't think of a good reason other than a possible small increase in cost not to make the drive SATA III.[/citation]
If the new drives aren't saturating SATA II then why use SATA III then?
 

ap3x

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There are some drives that almost saturate SATA II. Not sure if this one can since there is no performance data on the article. One thing though, the fact that they are talking about longevity as their value rather than performance does somewhat indicate that the performance is probably nothing to get excited about.
 

ThisIsMe

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Even if they do almost saturate the enitre sata II interface and use almost all the bandwidth, there would still be no benefit to move to sata III. There are relatively few sata III mother boards/controllers in use. And even fewer drives that can actually utilize it for what it's worth. So if they had added sata III it would have meant including more expensive parts and adding to the final price. In the end there would be no real benefit and only more cost for the consumer.
 
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Hmm, people don't seem to realize that those prices are for bulk purchases... I expect a 15 to 20% markup minimum when you can buy them.
 

darkguset

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[citation][nom]lamorpa[/nom]Anyone follow this reasoning?[/citation]

Yields will increase, which means lower costs for Intel, and therefore can pass those savings on to the consumer.
 

malphas

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[citation][nom]darkguset[/nom]Yields will increase, which means lower costs for Intel, and therefore can pass those savings on to the consumer.[/citation]
Uhm, yes actually. Why? Don't you?
 

lamorpa

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[citation][nom]darkguset[/nom]Yields will increase, which means lower costs for Intel, and therefore can pass those savings on to the consumer.[/citation]
Who said anything about savings? the quote says, "larger storage capacities"

Read, then comment.
 

jkflipflop98

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[citation][nom]lamorpa[/nom]Anyone follow this reasoning?[/citation]

It was poorly worded.

Thanks to the 25-nm processing, consumers will see larger storage capacities of up to 600 GB and reduced prices due to lower manufacturing costs.
 

someonewhoknowsalittle

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Don't these drives suffer from the same weakness as any SSD drive in that you can really only use them for the OS(es) and programs and not data because of the limited number of re-writes they can tolerate before their storage areas become decrepit and unreliable? If so, this is not a technology that will endure. We need to find a storage medium that is both fast and reliable over millions of writes, rewrites and reads. SSD with only a few thousand rewrites possible before serious degradation is a flawed storage medium. Why spend over $1000 for such a flawed unit that won't survive more than 1 year if used to store data? Not too many people need 600 GB to store their OSes and programs. Next!
 
[citation][nom]jprahman[/nom]I don't quite get why these drives don't support SATA III. I mean the listed reason is compatibility, but SATA III drives were compatible with SATA II controllers.[/citation]
The reason the SSD 320 does not support SATA III is because the controller is identical to what is used in the X25-M G2.
The only real differences between the SSD 320 and X25-M G2, other than the migration to 25nm NAND, is in the firmware.
The SSD 320 has had the sequential wright cap removed and enables the controllers AES-128 encryption.
 
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