Looking to dump your mechanical driver in favor of a super-fast SSD? If so, Intel just announced something that might be right up your alley.
And oh, by the way, it looks pretty metal – at least as far as PC components go.
The chip-maker just took the wraps off a new solid state drive, dubbed the 730 series, which sports a silver finish that would look right at home inside the torso or head of a T-800 Terminator. It’s also got a Terminator-like skull on the top panel as well, which we find to be simultaneously cool/awesome and ominous. As a metal fan, I personally appreciate the touch. Thankfully though, that’s where the similarities between the 730 Series and the murderous, tank-like cyborg end.
Shipping in capacities of either 240GB or 480GB, the Intel 730 Series SSD is, as you probably expected, of the 2.5-inch variety, and is also 7mm thick. It also consumes up to 5.5 watts of power when active and as little as 1.3 watts when sitting idle.
As for data transfer rates, the Intel 730 Series SSD’s read time hits a maximum of 550MB per second, while its write time tops out at 470MB per tick. Of course, we’ll be able to get a better handle on the legitimacy of those states once we have some 730 Series drives in hand for testing. Intel’s internal tests were conducted on systems equipped with the company’s very own elite Core i7-4770K processor, an Intel Z87 chipset and 8GB PC3 of RAM.
You can snag the 240GB Intel 730 Series SSD for $249, while the 480GB version run you $489. The drives will begin shipping on March 18, roughly three weeks from now.
What do you think? Sound off in the comments below.
