No intel g3 drives this year :(

madindehead · 31 Jan 2011 at 18:42

Tute said:
I'm going to bump this as I heard a rumour recently that these are imminent, and we're talking days rather than weeks now. I don't really know if I should say who told me, but he's pretty reliable.

It's amazing how quiet Intel have managed to keep it. No confirmed specs, sizes, launch dates or availability, nothing.

Hmm. I hope this is reliable.

And agreed, the thread title needs an edit

jimmy321 · 1 Feb 2011 at 09:42

There are 2 SSD's from Micron using 25nm NAND flash due very soon. RealSSD C400 & Crucial(R) m4

SATA 6Gb, 415mb read, 260mb write....

"Micron is currently working with notebook manufacturers to qualify its new RealSSD drives under the C400 product name.
With samples of the RealSSD C400 drives available now, Micron expects mass production to begin in February"

"Bringing the drives to business customers and consumers, Crucial, a division of Micron, will begin selling the portfolio under the name, Crucial(R) m4 SSD. The Crucial m4 SSD product line is expected to be available online at crucial.com and through select global channel partners in the first quarter of 2011.
"

"The new portfolio is the first SSD product line to incorporate Micron's 25-nanometer (nm) NAND flash technology, creating a broad portfolio of capacities ranging from 64-gigabyte (GB) to 512GB. The drives will be available in 1.8-inch and 2.5-inch form factors. As with its predecessor, the product line also supports the SATA 6Gb/s interface, which opens up the data path between the host processor and the SSD delivering improved overall system responsiveness including faster boot times and speedier application loads. The new drives reach read speeds up to 415 megabytes (MB)/second, which is 17 percent faster than Micron's previous generation drives. With write performance varying by capacity, the new 512GB drive achieves up to 260 MB/second write speeds, which is more than 20 percent faster than the fastest C300 drive. The new SSDs also provide benefits that desktops, workstations and industrial applications can take advantage of including low power consumption, lightweight construction and resistance to shock and vibration."

madindehead · 1 Feb 2011 at 18:47

Nice info, but sadly not relevant for the Intel drives. Need/want more info on those!

Tute · 2 Feb 2011 at 01:22

As said above Jimmy, it's not about all out speed. I'm happy to give Intel my money because I know the drive will be faultless and the controller won't just randomly crap itself and lose all my data for no reason.

madindehead · 2 Feb 2011 at 09:07

Tute said:
As said above Jimmy, it's not about all out speed. I'm happy to give Intel my money because I know the drive will be faultless and the controller won't just randomly crap itself and lose all my data for no reason.

True. All the SandForce based drives have speed on their side. But I have heard a lot more about SandForce based drives failing, than any Intel drive! (Apart from the firmware update which crapped out drives.)

That is my reason for waiting for the G3 drives. Also, the main benefit of the G3s is meant to be be price! Double the capacity for the same price as current Intel drives is their aim.

The Intel random speeds are meant to be very good, and that is exactly what you want for running an OS on. That info about the Micron drives only mentions sequential speed. That means nothing for everyday OS use. It is really starting to annoy me. I know it's a marketing ploy, but for SSDs people really need to stop looking at only sequential speeds!

Zarf · 2 Feb 2011 at 09:58

madindehead said:
The Intel random speeds are meant to be very good, and that is exactly what you want for running an OS on. That info about the Micron drives only mentions sequential speed. That means nothing for everyday OS use. It is really starting to annoy me. I know it's a marketing ploy, but for SSDs people really need to stop looking at only sequential speeds!

And even then, those 500MB/s sequential are only on compressible data. However almost all large files where sequential speeds matter (Audio, Video, Game textures etc) are already compressed.

Echo · 2 Feb 2011 at 10:35

Tute said:
As said above Jimmy, it's not about all out speed. I'm happy to give Intel my money because I know the drive will be faultless and the controller won't just randomly crap itself and lose all my data for no reason.

Indeed, I got burned with a 256GB C300 last summer when they were £500 - died just 5 hours in. Being my first venture into SSD land, crushed was not the word...

Bought a budget X25-V in August (complemented with 3 x HDD RAID0 for chunky stuff) and it's not missed a beat.

The G3s could retire the array if the price is right, a little less heat/noise/power always good!

inogen · 2 Feb 2011 at 11:11

Intel are being very quiet about these drives aren't they?

I wonder if they held them back to develop support for Sata III.

Klo · 2 Feb 2011 at 14:02

Echo said:
Indeed, I got burned with a 256GB C300 last summer when they were £500 - died just 5 hours in. Being my first venture into SSD land, crushed was not the word...

Bought a budget X25-V in August (complemented with 3 x HDD RAID0 for chunky stuff) and it's not missed a beat.

The G3s could retire the array if the price is right, a little less heat/noise/power always good!

Well thats more just being unlucky than any long term stability issues.

Tute · 2 Feb 2011 at 14:32

Well what I don't understand is the where the rumours and the roadmap cross each other. It almost seems like Intel have decided to do something totally unrelated to what was on the roadmap.

This is what I understand the roadmap was:

However, now these "Emcrest" drives have mysteriously appeared, with capacities of 120GB and 250GB:

http://www.tomshardware.com/news/Emcrest-SSD-SandForce-Intel-SSD,12089.html

I don't get where they've come from. I was expecting 160, 300, 600GB drives. Are these still coming? Have they been ditched in favour of the new ones?

It's eerily quiet at the Intel SSD department, this worries me.

madindehead · 2 Feb 2011 at 15:35

Hmm. That seems weird, because if Intel were manufacturing 25nm flash, why would they then go and make 35nm 6GB/s drives?

Seems weird. Even if those 6GB/s drives come out, they will still be around the same price as the G2s.

I guess the G3s are the entry level price/performance drives, and these new ones are the top of the range drives?

Hell, I just really want a G3. If they were better than the G2s which everyone said were amazing, then if the G3s come in at a good price, they will do very well.

Just wish we knew more!