Intel, Samsung launch their fastest SSDs with up to 5Gbps speeds
Intel's new P3608 Series PCIe SSD comes in 1.6TB, 3.2TB and 4GTB capacities and delivers up to 850,000 I/Os per second (IOPS) random reads and 150,000 random writes.
The drive has a sequential read/write speed of up to 5,000MBps (5Gbps) and 3,000MBps (3Gbps), respectively.
Intel's new enterprise-class SSD also has a whopping endurance rate, with the ability to withstand up to 21.9 petabytes worth or writes over its lifetime or three full drive writes per day.
Samsung, meanwhile, released its fastest consumer-ready SSD -- the 950 Pro, which boasts four times the read speeds and three times the write speeds of its 850 Pro predecessor.
The 950 PRO SSD delivers read speeds of up to 2,500MBps (2.5Gbps) and write speeds of up to 1,500MBps (1.5Gbps).
The 950 Pro is Samsung's first consumer-ready Non-Volatile Memory Express (NVMe) SSD in a gumstick (M.2) form factor. The SSD is built on Samsung's V-NAND technology, which allows vertical stacking of flash cells for a denser package. The V-NAND technology also improves performance and lowers power use.
Samsung's new SSD uses a PCIe Gen.3 x4 serial expansion bus interface, which offers improved random and sequential performance compared to a traditional SATA interface using the legacy Advanced Host Controller Interface (AHCI) protocol.
Samsung is marketing the new 950 Pro at professionals who want top performance, higher bandwidth and lower latency for their high-end PCs and workstations, or for projects such as computer-aided design, data analysis and engineering simulation.
The compact gumstick form factor is compatible with latest generation desktop and mobile platforms that support the M.2 PCIe slot and interface.
The 950 Pro comes with AES 256-bit full disk encryption and Samsung's Dynamic Thermal Guard, which can protect the device and data in inclement weather from 0 to 70 degrees Celsius (32 degrees to 158 degrees Fahrenheit) by throttling down the power of the SSD in order to lower the temperature. It can also withstand physical shock of up to 1500G/0.5ms and vibrations of up to 20G.
The 950 Pro comes in 256GB and 512GB capacities and has a five-year limited warranty. The warranty covers up to 200TB of writes over its lifetime for the 256GB drive and 400TB worth of writes for the 512GB. The 950 PRO will be available beginning in October, with a retail price of $199.99 for the 256GB drive and $349.99 for the 512GB model.
Unlike Samsung's new SSD, Intel is aiming its new P3608 SSD squarely at high performance computing environments, where it said it can "eliminate bottlenecks that limit HPC workflows" and accelerate databases.
The P3608 comes in a half-height, half-length expansion card. The SSD is built with Intel's 20-nanometer process and multi-level cell (MLC) NAND flash memory.
As did Samsung's, Intel's new SSD uses NVMe and the PCIe 3.0 interconnect specification, but it has eight I/O lanes compared to Samsung's four.
Intel also announced that the SSD 535 Series is now available in a 56GB model for niche market segments requiring low-density storage, such as ATMs, kiosks and point of sale, mini PCs and terminals, digital signage, and Internet of Things applications.
The SSD 535 comes in an M.2 or 2.5-in. form factor and uses the SATA 3.0 interface. The drive offers up to 540MBps sequential read and 490MBps write speeds and up to 48,000 random read and 80,000 write IOPS.
Intel did not offer pricing for either of its new SSDs.