Intel SSD 525 mSATA Drives Set to Run With 6 Gbps Speed

Users looking to upgrade their Ultrabooks just got a new set of SSD options, courtesy of Intel. The chip-maker today unveiled its new line of SSD 525 mSATA SSDs with SATA 6 GBps speeds, a company first. The drives comes in 30, 60, 90, 120, 180, and 240GB flavors, each in a footprint that’s an eighth the size of a 2.5-inch hard disk drive.

Here’s a quick run-down on storage sizes and suggested retail pricing from Intel:

• 30GB – $54
• 60GB – $104
• 90GB – $129
• 120GB – $149
• 180GB – $214
• 240GB – $279

The 120 and 180GB units are available now, while the remainder should ship soon, according to Intel. The company also emphasizes that it’s price points are recommendations for retail and may not be the final price of consumers shopping at e-tailers.

The 10-gram Intel SSD 525 will feature mSATA connectors with PCIe support, random read performance up to 50,000 input/outputs per second, and sequential read performance up to 550 MB per second. And the drives will weigh just 10g. Look for the Intel SSD 525 lineup to start landing in Ultrabooks and other ultraportable machines later this year with AES 128-bit encryption  data protection, Intel 25-nanometer multi-level cell NAND flash memory and a 5-year limited warranty.

Stay tuned for our directions on how to make use of these suckers, and how to install them. 

• What’s the Best SSD? 5 Drives Tested 
• 39 Million SSDs Sold in 2012, 82 Million Projected for 2013 
• SSD Shell Game: Why Ultrabook Makers Won’t Tell You What’s Inside

Follow Kenneth Butler on Twitter and Google+. Follow LAPTOPMAG on Twitter, Google+ or Facebook.