Last month, Intel tossed its hat into the ring that is solid-state with the announcement of a series of flash drives. The company unveiled that it would start with 80 and 160 GB MLC drives and 32 and 64 GB SLC drives before following up with larger designs in 2009.
Today Intel released price points and a few other details for its Intel Mainstream SATA Solid-State Drive, or X25-M. The 80GB drive uses NAND flash technology and will available this week for $595. According to this CNET News article, that works out to about $7.43 per gigabyte. Most other drives cost around $3.50 per gigabyte.
One reason for the price could be the drive’s performance. PC World reports the X25-M blew away the competition in its lab tests.
