Intel updates its cable of solid-state drives Earlier this year,
Intel shove itself into the reality of strong country drives (SSDs. The party launched the Z-U130 series of NAND flash-based SSDs which used the basic USB 2. 0 interface. Intel's Z-U130 merchandise household consisted of 1GB, 2GB, 4GB and 8GB models. Performance was quite paltry with read speeds of 28MB/sec and publish speeds of 20MB/sec.

Not one to have an other production waste in an aggressive marketplace, Intel is introducing its review to the Z-U130: the Z-P140. Intel's Z-P140 SSDs forego the USB 2. 0 port and instead take a PATA port. Due to effective promotion, the Z-P140 PATA SSDs standard just 12x18x1. 8mm -- 400 multiplication little than a 1. 8" HDD -- and consider simply 0. 6 grams. Power use is a small 1. 1mW while unused and 300mW during take/publish operations. The Mean-Time Before Failure (MTBF) of the Z-P140 PATA SSDs, which take Intel SD54B and SD58B NAND instant chips, is 2. 5 million hours.

The Z-P140 PATA SSDs are available in 2GB of 4GB modules; however, they can be expanded up to 16GB by using four 4GB modules. In addition, read and write speeds are now faster at 40MB/sec and 30MB/sec respectively.

"Our mission is to provide world-class non-volatile SSD and caching solutions that are designed, optimized and validated to enhance Intel Architecture-based computing platforms," said Pete Hazen, Intel's NAND Products Group director of marketing. "Our customers are finding the Intel Z-P140 PATA SSD to be the right size, fit and performance for their pocketable designs. This is Intel's latest offering as we continue to expand our product line of reliable, feature-rich and high-performing SSDs."

Intel's new line of SSDs aren't likely to give competing SSD manufacturers Samsung, Toshiba or Mtron much pause -- SSDs from those manufacturers come in larger 1.8" and 2.5" form-factors and are at least twice as fast in read/write operations. However, Intel is likely to target cell phone, portable media player (PMP) and UMPC vendors.

In fact, Intel's new SSDs sound like a perfect fit for a probable ASUS Eee PC 16G.