Intel Introduces 670p Consumer SSD and First Alder Stream Optane SSD

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Intel announces several new SSDs. Among other things, the company comes with a 670p NVMe SSD for consumers. The manufacturer is also showing some new Optane SSDs for use in data centers and an Optane H20 drive for consumer use.

The 670p SSD for consumers will be released in the first quarter of 2021, Intel reports. This SSD succeeds the current Intel 660p and 665p. The M.2 SSD uses 144-layer qlc-nand. Intel already reported earlier this year that the company would switch completely to that memory type in 2021. The new variant also uses a new memory controller, although Intel once again provides the drive with a PCIe 3.0 interface. Intel releases the 670p SSD with capacities of 512GB, 1TB and 2TB. Intel advertises a total bytes written of 150 terabytes written per 512GB of storage capacity.

The manufacturer is also showing an Optane Memory H20 drive, which will be available in the second quarter of 2021. Half of this disk is made up of a maximum of 1TB of qlc-nand, but also has 32GB of Optane memory that can be used as a cache for another disk. Intel reports that this H20 is supported on eleventh generation laptop processors. The company also mentions a 500-series desktop chipsets, which will be introduced for Intel’s upcoming Rocket Lake desktop CPUs.

The Intel 670p (left) and Optane H20. Images via Intel

Intel is also introducing its first Alder Stream Optane enterprise SSD in the form of its P5800X. This U.2 SSD uses the second generation of 3D Xpoint memory, which the company announced earlier this year. This memory is provided with four layers, while the first generation 3D Xpoint memory chips consist of two layers.

The P5800X is intended for use in data centers. According to Intel, the SSD achieves sequential read and write speeds of up to 7.2 GB / s and 6.2 GB / s respectively. The SSD has a PCIe 4.0 x4 interface, which offers a maximum theoretical bandwidth of about 8GB/s. The random speeds of the P5800X are 1.5 million iops with 4KB workloads. Furthermore, the SSD has a longer lifespan than its predecessor, Intel reports. The latency would also have improved; Intel claims this is less than six microseconds. That’s sixty percent of the latency of the current P4800X. The new P5800X will be available in capacities from 400GB to 3.2TB.

The Intel Optane P5800X. Images via Intel

Intel also shows two enterprise SSDs. One will be built from 144-layer TLC nand memory and the other will be available in capacities from 15.36 to 30.72TB with a U.2 or E1.L form factor. These SSDs both get a PCIe 4.0 controller. Intel also mentions the arrival of new Optane Persistent Memory dimms, which can be used, for example, as internal memory for servers in data centers.

Intel currently supplies Barlow Pass modules, but in the future the company will release Crow Pass dimms. In doing so, the company is upgrading the memory modules with second generation 3D Xpoint memory. Presumably Crow Pass will continue to use the DDR5 standard, as the modules are likely intended for the upcoming Sapphire Rapids series Xeon CPUs, which will require DDR5 memory dimms.

Intel’s enterprise roadmap. Image via Intel

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