Intel announces Solid-State Drive (SSD) 330 Series

Intel Corporation has announced the Intel Solid-State Drive 330 Series, a SATA 6 gigabit-per-second (Gb/s) solid-state drive (SSD) that gives consumers an affordable entry into the accelerated storage performance of SSDs. Ideal for upgrading desktop or notebook PCs, the Intel SSD 330 Series offers the price-conscious PC enthusiast a brand-name SSD that blends performance, Intel quality and value. Offered in 60 gigabytes (GB), 120GB and 180GB, the Intel SSD 330 Series helps boost overall system performance and responsiveness for a broad range of applications.

Worth a buy?

"An SSD is still the single best upgrade you can make to your existing PC, and the Intel SSD 330 Series gives users the latest Intel SSD technology at a price to meet their budget," said James Slattery, product line manager for client SSDs, Intel Non-Volatile Memory Solutions Group. "Backed by Intel's rigorous testing process, the Intel SSD 330 Series offers our users the speed they need at a great price, backed by world-class manufacturing, reliability and tech support."

Unlike a traditional hard disk drive (HDD) with spinning disks and moveable parts, SSDs offer a more rugged, low-power storage solution that improves system performance to keep up with today's I/O-intensive applications. The Intel SSD 330 Series contains Intel 25-nanometer (nm) multi-level cell (MLC) NAND memory. Its SATA 6Gb/s interface doubles the bandwidth of its current SATA 3Gb/s Intel SSD 320 Series, providing up to 500 megabytes-per-second (MB/s) sequential read speeds and up to 450MB/s sequential write speeds for faster data transfers. Random read performance can go up to 22,500 Input-Output Operations Per Second (IOPS) and 33,000 write IOPS to boost overall application and system responsiveness, significantly outperforming a typical consumer hard disk drive.

Intel offers a broad range of SSD choices within four product families. The Intel SSD 300 Family is aimed at entry-level, mainstream client users. The Intel SSD 500 Family offers more fully featured, higher-performing client SSDs for computer and gaming enthusiasts. The Intel SSD 700 and Intel SSD 900 Families are targetted at data center applications.

The Intel SSD 330 Series comes in a standard 2.5-inch/9.5mm form factor as a replacement to a slower-performing HDD. It can be used in a dual-drive desktop PC configuration to speed up boot times and applications speeds, or as a single-drive notebook upgrade.

Available beginning today at worldwide retailers and online e-tailers, the Intel SSD 330 Series is offered at the suggested channel price of $89 (approx. Rs. 4,581) for a 60GB drive, $149 (approx Rs. 7,671) for a 120GB drive and $234 (approx Rs. 12,047) for a 180GB drive. It is also backed by a 3-year limited warranty.