Intel unveils new ultra-compact SSD 310

Just in time for the New Year, Intel has unveiled an ultra-compact Solid State Drive (SSD) that is merely one-eighth of the size of their X25 SATA line.

The Intel SSD 310, designed for tablet PCs as well as ruggedized industrial and military equipment, is 51mm-by-30mm and only 5mm thick. It contains 34 nanometer (nm) Intel NAND flash memory, and comes in 40GB and 80GB capacities in the m-SATA form factor.

In addition to being tiny, this new SSD 310 series is also fast. Compared to a 5400 RPM HDD, the SSD 310 is up to 60 percent faster according to Intel’s benchmarking tests.

“The Intel SSD 310 Series is the first in a wave of SSD products we will introduce throughout the next year,” said Intel vice president Tom Rampone. “With this introduction, Intel is offering full SSD performance in a compact, ultra-small form factor.”

The SSD 310 is being adopted by Lenovo for their ThinkPad line of notebooks. The small design is allowing the manufacturer to incorporate dual-drive systems into their models, which allows for an accelerated boot time, as well as faster access to files and applications that are frequently used.

“The Intel SSD 310 series will allow us to provide the advantages of a full-performance Intel SSD paired with the storage of a hard disk drive in a small, dual-drive system,” said director of ThinkPad product marketing Tom Butler. “We’ve offered Intel SSD solutions for our highly innovative Lenovo ThinkPad laptops for some time, and now we’re looking forward to incorporating this new solution across our ThinkPad line.”

Pricing for the SSD 310 is initially set at $99 for the 40GB model and $179 for the 80GB, but that is for 1000-unit quantities. Once these begin selling directly to consumers, prices will likely be a bit higher.