The X25-M product is shipping now, and the 1.8-inch 160GB version shipping next month. Intel announced the 80GB X25-M and X18-M — it's first foray into the SSD market — at its Developers Forum in August and shortly after announced the X25-E for enterprise servers and workstations. The 32GB Intel X25-E Extreme SATA is based on Intel's single-level cell NAND flash memory and is designed to maximize the input/output operations per second, while the X25M is a multi-level cell memory affording it greater capacity.
Network World reviewed the 80GB X25-M in September and found it to be the fastest consumer-grade SSD on the market to date. The X25-M even beat out Western Digital's fastest Velociraptor hard disk drive, which has a 250.2MB/sec. burst speed and 105.6MB/sec. average read speed. The X25-M turned in 256.7MB/sec. and 230.2MB/sec. burst and transfer rates, respectively. Intel did not immediately offer pricing on the new 160GB X25-M and X18-M drives.
