SSDs are great, and they’re getting smaller all the time. A lot smaller. Intel’s teeny new 310 Series SSDs deliver the same performance as the x25s that came before them, but they’re just an eighth the size.
https://gizmodo.com/giz-explains-ssds-and-why-you-wish-you-had-one-5453498
The new drives, intended for notebooks, tablets, and rugged industrial and military devices, are 51mm-by-30mm and a mere 5mm thick. AnandTech points out that it’s Intel’s first mSATA SSD: “physically a mini PCIe connector (similar to what you’d see with a WiFi card in a notebook) but electrically SATA.” What that means is a super-compact drive that is distancing itself from the form factors of traditional hard drives.
Lenovo’s signed the 310 up for their next-generation ThinkPads, and DRS Technology’s planning on sliding the 310 in a tablet next year. Intel’s shipping drives to OEMs in 1000-unit quantities in two capacities: 40GB ($99) and 80GB ($179). They say it’s the first salvo in a wave of new solid state drives they’ll be firing off next year, to which I say bring it on. The smaller and the faster the better. [Intel]
