Intel on Thursday buffed up its solid state drive lineup with the release of more affordable enterprise SSDs targeted for data center applications and the Internet of Things.
The new SSDs, built on Intel’s 3-D NAND chips, offer a cost-effective replacement for traditional hard disk drives, helping customers accelerate user IT experiences, improve the performance of apps and services, and reduce IT costs, according to Bill Leszinske, Intel Vice President and Director of Strategic Planning, Marketing and Business Development for NSG.
“These new SSDs reflect Intel’s 30-year commitment to memory technologies and our long-term plan to transform the economics of storage with trusted, breakthrough 3D NAND technology from Intel,” he said in a statement. “Intel is uniquely positioned to address multiple market segments simultaneously from consumer to business, Internet of Things and data center … This broad array of new 3D NAND SSDs expands the reach of PCIe solutions.”
[Related: 6 New Intel SSDs That Will Help Partners Monetize The Data Explosion From IoT]
The SSDs support the NVMe protocol, which enables quicker throughput than SATA originally did for hard drives, according to Intel.
On the data center side, Intel’s DC P3520 series of SSDs have been optimized for cost-effective performance and are targeted for partners dealing with read-intensive applications in cloud computing – including storage virtualization and web hosting. These SSDs start at $294 for 450GB storage capacity and up to $984 for 2TB storage capacity.
The company also released its DC S3520 data center series of SSDs, which is better suited for entry-level customers making the initial transition from hard disk drives to SATA solid state drives — SATA being the current standard technology for connecting SSDs to computers.
This series balances cost and performance for the data center and delivers “significant” latency and throughput improvements, over traditional hard disk drives in the data center, according to Intel. The series starts at $89 for 150GB storage capabilities up to $739 for 1.6TB capability.
Donna Shepard, senior vice president of Dallas-based M&A Technology, an Intel system builder partner, said the new SSDs would help partners increase their existing storage sales, particularly for data center applications.
“We’re excited because we feel it will increase storage capacity for reliable data,” she said. “This is important for the data center. When you have such a large arrangement of customers where data is being backed up, it’s critical to have these SSDs. Intel puts money into improving good products – it entices partners and gives brands more credibility.”
For the Internet of Things market, Intel’s E 6000p series is targeted for channel partners who are implementing Internet of Things applications, such as point of sale devices and digital signage.
