Time to ditch the hard drive? Intel's 80GB drives make solid state a tasty option, though they'll probably put a dent in your hip pocket.
Intel has shipped its first line of solid-state (SSD) hard drives for notebooks and PCs.
The new line includes an 80GB drive in both 1.8 and 2.5 inch versions dubbed the X18-M and X25-M, respectively. The company hopes to add a 160GB SSD model to the line later this year.
Intel plans to sell both models to PC manufacturers in quantities of up to 1,000 at a price tag of US$595 per drive. The company expects the first models equipped with the SSDs to hit the market within the next few weeks.
HP already plans to offer the drives in its notebook lineup starting in October.
Intel also provided an update on the line of server SSDs the company announced in August at IDF. The company said that the X25-E Extreme drives should ship to system vendors within the next 90 days.
That drive will sport a 32 GB capacity be aimed at high-performance server applications that demand the fact access times afforded by the solid-state systems. Intel estimates that its solid-state drives run some nine-times faster than plate-based hard drives and require less power and space.