Intel has officially unleashed their latest SSD 750 series solid-state drives meant to push storage drive speeds on the consumer front by harnessing the NVMe (Express) and PCI-e 3.0 standard. The latest SSDs from Intel are focused towards enthusiasts and high-performance users聽demanding consistent performance and high transfer rates with added reliability, all three of which are handled quite well by the SSD 750 series drives.
Intel SSD 750 Series Solid-State Drives - Enthusiast Aimed, Undeniably Fast Storage Solution For The Masses
Starting with the specifications, the SSD 750 Series will be available in two form factors, the standard 2.5" bay drive which features the聽SFF-8639 connector cable to boot up while the second option is an add-in-card which fits into a half-length PCI-e slot. Since the motherboards don't officially yet provide connectivity to the latest SFF standards which Intel is using on their latest SSD 750 series drives, they do bundle two connector cables with the 2.5" variants that include an聽SFF-8639 to SFF-8643 (mini SAS) and聽SFF-8643 to M.2/SATA power cable. Since Z97 and X99 series of motherboards from AIBs do come with M.2 interface slots, the drives will easily be compatible with the current and upcoming generation of motherboards however most M.2 are Gen 2 x2 and to gain full potential of the SSD drives, its advised to equip them to a Ultra M.2 interface slot which are capable of x4 PCI-e Gen 3 speeds.
Coming to the speeds, both the 2.5" (15mm) and PCI-e add-in-card drives are backed by the PCI-e 3.0 x4 and NVM Express standard. Intel is using their latest聽20nm 128Gbit MLC NAND on the SSD 750 series which are backed by the聽Intel CH29AE41AB0 controller. Specifications wise, both SSDs do sound a lot similar to the SSD DC P3700 which were aimed at data centers and professional workspaces however the difference lies in how Intel has repurposed the new drives for the consumer market with a focus on random performance (random IO). Drives of both form factors will be available in 400 GB and 1.2 TB flavors with sequential reads and writes at 2200 MB/900 MB for the 400 GB and 2400 MB/ 1200 MB for the 1.2 TB variants. The IOPS Read and Write stands at 430,000/230,000 for the 400 GB and 440,000/290,000 for the 1.2 TB variants. These variants have idle power consumption rated at 4W and peak wattage rated at 9-12W for 400 GB and 10-22W for 1.2 TB variants.
It is expected that Intel may launch various capacity variants of the SSD 750 series family in the future. Prices of the current models are $389 for either form-factor 400 GB variant and $1029 US for the 1.2 TB variants. All SSD are backed by a 5-Year warranty period. Review of the SSD 750 series have proven to be exceptionally well with the drives performing as expected. Some of the reviews can be found in the round-up below:
- Intel SSD 750 Series Solid-State Drive Review @ PCPerspective
- Intel SSD 750 Series Solid-State Drive Review @ TheTechReport
- Intel SSD 750 Series Solid-State Drive Review @ Anandtech
- Intel SSD 750 Series Solid-State Drive Review @ PCWorld
- Intel SSD 750 Series Solid-State Drive Review @ StorageReview
- Intel SSD 750 Series Solid-State Drive Review @ theSSDReview
- Intel SSD 750 Series Solid-State Drive Review @ TweakTown
Intel SSD 750 Series Add-in-Card PCB (Courtesy of Anandtech):
Intel SSD 750 Series Product Specifications:
| Capacity | Sequential 128 KB Read聽(up to MB/s)1 | Sequential 128 KB Write聽(up to MB/s)1 | Random 4 KB Read聽(up to IOPS)2 | Random 4 KB Write聽(up to IOPS)2 | Form Factor | Interface | NAND | Price |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| 400 GB | 2,200 | 900 | 430,000 | 230,000 | 2.5-inch x 15 mm | PCI Express Gen3 x4 | Intel 20nm 128Gbit MLC聽NAND | $389 |
| 1.2 TB | 2,400 | 1,200 | 440,000 | 290,000 | 2.5-inch x 15 mm | PCI Express Gen3 x4 | Intel 20nm 128Gbit MLC聽NAND | $1,029 |
| 400 GB | 2,200 | 900 | 430,000 | 230,000 | Half-height half-length (HHHL) Add-in Card | PCI Express Gen3 x4 | Intel 20nm 128Gbit MLC聽NAND | $389 |
| 1.2 TB | 2,400 | 1,200 | 440,000 | 290,000 | Half-height half-length (HHHL) Add-in Card | PCI Express Gen3 x4 | Intel 20nm 128Gbit MLC NAND | $1,029 |
Intel SSD 750 Series Slides:
