Intel’s splendid new Solid State Drives have been on quite the rollercoaster. Announced mid-July to the delight of the peasants, not a week later they were pulled from production due to a rather serious bug that could lose all of your data.
The firmware fix was finally made available a few weeks ago and drives have been slow to roll into retailers. Last week we reported that you could start to find the drives and now NewEgg has them back in stock.
Unfortunately, the laws of supply and demand apply much like death and taxes, and the drives are priced quite a bit higher than Intel’s quoted bulk price. Only the 80GB model is currently available and it is listed at $349.99, compared to Intel’s bulk price of $225 and prices in the $230-270 range when the drives were first announced.
This is definitely not the time to pick up one of the second gen models. Even though early adopters generally pay a premium, this isn’t the premium for new technology – it’s the premium for so little of the new technology.
Intel’s new 2nd generation 34nm SSDs are finally starting to show up at retailers, but in limited quantities.
It’s been a tough road for Intel’s new SSDs. Not long after launch, they were pulled off the market due to an unfortunate firmware bug that would cause data loss under certain circumstances. While Intel has fixed that bug and resumed production, merchandise still isn’t flowing into the market fast enough.
Amazon and NewEgg are both still out of stock of the new drives, but we just received word that CostCentral has the Gen 2 80GB drives in stock at $244 + shipping. With 39 available at the time of publishing, this isn’t a large volume by any means and represents the first trickle of drives just starting to get out.
There is also a deal at LogicBuy for the 80GB model as well, but through Toshiba Direct at $230 after coupon. Toshiba lists the ship time as 1-2 weeks, so you could be in for a wait if you want to save a few bucks.
For what it’s worth, NewEgg lists the ETA for both Gen 2 drives as September 2.
New Intel X-25M G2 SSD board - image from Anandtech.com
The unfortunate firmware bug that could cause complete data loss on Intel’s new SSDs is now fixed, although models still aren’t shipping from retailers.
Towards the end of July, Intel announces a new line of SSD drives that promise to bring significantly lower costs to the market, and still improve performance a bit. Unfortunately only a week later the drives were pulled from distribution channels due to a bug that would cause data loss if the user set a BIOS password and subsequently changed it.
Hard at work for the past few weeks, Intel engineers have completed the fix and it is now available to the public. Very few drives should have made it to the public, making for few complications, and all drives shipped from here on out will have the updated firmware applied.
Unfortunately drives still aren’t shipping from retailers like Amazon and NewEgg. Amazon lists shipping time as 2-4 weeks and NewEgg as August 28th. If you are in a bind and need a quality SSD fast, check out the 1st generation Intel SSDs being cleared out at NewEgg.
Last week we reported that Intel’s new 34nm SSD drives were put on a manufacturing hold due to a firmware bug that would cause data loss under certain circumstances. Working quickly to resolve the issue, Intel has stated that the updated firmware will be completed later this week and production will resume.
The bug in question occurs when someone applies a BIOS password to the drive, then either remove or change that password, causing the data to be inaccessible. Sales were also halted at retailers much to shoppers’ chagrin, but prices are dropping on the 1st generation drives too. The 80GB Gen1 drive can be had for around $230 at the time of publishing, bringing them to the same price as the new models and making them an incredible SSD value still.
Thanks to our astute readers, they noticed that the drive in the LogicBuy deal was actually the 1st generation Intel SSD. The 2nd generation SSD can be found here on NewEgg and it is still out of stock with an ETA of 8/28. Still, if you need an SSD now, the Gen1 drives are quite competitive and you might even see the prices dip lower in the near future.
Original post below
About two weeks ago we saw Intel’s new SSD drives introduced. Using a more efficient, smaller manufacturing process, this 2nd generation of drives promised to bring lower prices to SSDs all around. The drives started appearing in retail channels about a week ago, primarily at big e-box retailer Amazon for right around MSRP.
Shortly after, Intel put SSD manufacturing on hold due to a firmware bug that could lead to data loss. Here we are a week later and not only does it appear drives are flowing once again, but NewEgg has put the 80GB version on sale.
That’s right, two weeks after launch we are seeing Intel’s second generation of SSDs on sale for a total of $85 off. The $85 is a bit misleading – while NewEgg’s regular price is listed as $314 and the drive is on sale for $229 (with free shipping), Amazon has the same drive for $244 regularly (also with free shipping). Still, almost $20 off the next lowest price within the first 2 weeks since announcement is damn good.
In case you missed my previous post, tech hardware site Anandtech took a preliminary, yet still revealing, look at the new SSDs and put them through some paces. An even more detailed article, looking at nearly all consumer-level SSDs, should be out soon. We’ll post it here when it goes up!
Pick up one of these drives here while the sale lasts, courtesy of LogicBuy
Read other posts related to SSDs, or specifically Intel SSDs
Intel has come across a snag in their new 34nm SSDs. A bug in the firmware may cause data corruption if “a password is set on the drive in the system BIOS, and then changed or disabled later.” While it doesn’t appear many units have been shipped through resellers yet, everyone is sitting on their stock and Intel has ceased manufacturing until the problem is remedied. A firmware patch is expected quickly and everything should start flowing again.
New Intel X-25M G2 SSD board - image from Anandtech.com
A few days ago Intel released a new lineup of SSD drives that are more efficiently made with the intention of driving SSD costs down, opening up the market to more people.
We noted in that article that Anandtech had posted their usually excellent analysis of the decision and technology, but they also had one of the new X25-M (G2) drives dropped off for a bit o fun. This is just an initial preview, but has a good look at the changes in the drive and some benchmarks.
I’m also going to point you to another article of Anand’s that is a must-read if you’re interested in SSDs. There is far more underneath the surface of “bunch of flash chips with a SATA connector on them.” SSDs have evolved incredibly since their initial debut and there are a number of real world concerns with usability and performance. Anand covers all this in the “SSD Anthology” as he calls it – which is an accurate description, at 31 individual pages in the article.
I admit to reading every page, geeking out like I haven’t in a while, but if you’re interested in SSD technology I highly recommend a read of at least the first 5-6 pages. The most interesting analysis of SSD technology occurs through about page 15 and after that it covers evolution of SSD technology in the past few months, largely prompted by the discoveries of the online tech review community. Here’s the Anthology, enjoy and let me know what you think.
Update: If you’re interested in a technical discussion of the new SSDs, I highly recommend you check out Anandtech’s article
Today Intel announced a new line of Solid State Drives (SSDs) using highly efficient manufacturing techniques to drastically reduce cost.
This is it folks. SSDs are heading mainstream at full speed and nothing is stopping them. Intel has been collaborating with fellow silicon-noisseur Micron Technologies and the joint-venture firm named IM Flash Technologies created flash memory based around a 34nm NAND manufacturing process. Samsung and Toshiba are also working on a smaller flash technology, to be built at 32nm, which will really up the competition level as well.
What does this mean to you? Intel’s previous flash drives were based on a 50nm manufacturing process, making the transistors in the new drives 32% smaller. When you can fit more transistors in the same slice of silicon, you can make more devices from that slice and reduce costs thanks to economies of scale. The sweet images and presentation Intel released yesterday on how a processor is made are very applicable to what we’re talking about here.
These new drives will still be called the X25-M (2.5-inch form factor) and X18-M (1.8-inch), but they will of course have new SKU’s. The X25-M 80GB (SKU SSDSA2MH080G2C1) and 160GB (SKU SSDSA2MH160G2C1) model built on 34nm technology will be available very soon, with a 320GB model expected at an unknown later date. The X18-M versions should ship later this quarter.
Prices have been a huge roadblock for SSD proliferation and they are dropping rapidly. While the original 80GB X25-M announced for $595 not even a year ago, the new model is priced around $225. The 160GB version is appropriately doubled, offering double the capacity for $440, down from $945 at launch.
P.S. Maybe now we can all afford to go crazy with SSD.
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