Intel has announced what it says is its fastest, most robust client/consumer solid-state drive (SSD) to date: the Intel Solid-State Drive 520 Series, a 6 gigabit-per-second (gbps) SATA III SSD produced using Intel 25-nanometer (nm) NAND memory process technology.

"We tapped Intel engineering to create a client SSD that delivers performance on all fronts with obsessively high reliability," says Rob Crooke, Intel vice president and general manager of the Intel Non-Volatile Memory Solutions Group. "The Intel SSD 520 once again raises the industry bar on SSD performance, quality and reliability to dramatically improve user experience."

Unlike a traditional hard disk drive (HDD) with spinning disks and moveable parts, an SSD is based on silicon, NAND flash memory specifically, to create a lower power, more reliable and drastically faster storage solution that can keep up with today’s most demanding applications, Internet streaming and intense multi-tasking, he says. Based on its own industry-leading 25nm Intel compute-quality NAND flash memory and a 6gbps SATA III interface, the Intel SSD 520 uses an LSI SandForce Flash Storage Processor with an Intel co-defined and validated firmware release.

The Intel SSD 520 delivers up to 80,000 maximum 4K random write Input-Output Operations Per Second (IOPS) and up to 50,000 4K random read IOPS. High sequential read performance of up to 550 megabytes-per-second (MB/s) and up to 520MB/s sequential writes also markedly accelerate and improve user productivity, says Crooke.

The Intel SSD 520 Series is priced as follows, based on 1,000-unit quantities: 60GB for US$149, 120GB at $229, 180GB at $369, 240GB at $509 and 480GB at US$999. It comes with a five-year limited warranty. For more info go to http://www.intel.com/go/ssd .