Intel has announced its first SSDs called the X18-M and the X25-M. The X18-M SSD is a 1.8-inch unit and the X25-M is a 2.5-inch drive. Intel says that the SSD drives are much faster than traditional SSDs and reduce the bottlenecks in performance between the storage drive and Intel's CPUs.

The Intel X18-M and X-25M SSDs can be had in capacities of 80GB and 160GB. The larger capacity drives won’t be sampling until Q4 2008. Intel says that the 80GB SSD has a read speed of 250MB/sec and a write speed of up to 70MB/sec. The 80GB SSD will sell for $595 in quantities of 1,000 and are shipping now.

"Validated by our rigorous testing and OEM customer feedback, we believe that we have developed an SSD that delivers on the promises of SSD computing," said Randy Wilhelm, Intel vice president and general manager of the NAND Products Group. "By combining our experience in flash memory design with our processor and computing expertise, we have added advances such as our parallel 10-channel architecture, proprietary controller, firmware and memory management algorithms that address write amplification and wear leveling issues to redefine SSD performance and reliability for computing platforms."

Via Intel