Intel Announces SSD Pro 1500 Series For Business Class Applications — Performance, Manageability And Security In 2.5″ And M.2 (NGFF) Form Factors

Intel Corporation is announcing release of a new family of business-class SSDs.  The first member(s) of this new product family will be the Pro 1500 Series, which will offer improved manageability and security features when utilized with Intel’s vPro Technology and an Opal management suite of protocols.

The Intel Pro 1500 Series helps IT departments to easily deploy and securely manage their usage, resulting in enhanced performance that increases employee productivity and lowers Total Cost of Ownership (TCO).  Utilizing Intel’s Stable Image Platform Program makes a transition to the Pro 1500 series predictable and easy, with necessary key drivers already in place.  This also creates the ability for IT departments to remotely monitor and diagnose issues at the drive level, requiring less desk-side PC maintenance or repairs.

Intel’s SSD Pro 1500 Series utilizes enterprise-grade security features, including hardware-level 256-bit AES encryption and Trusted Computing Group (TCG) Opal key management protocols; which have become an industry standard.  The Pro 1500 Series features remote management capabilities, improving your IT department’s efficiency also.  Power consumption is reduced from watts to milliwatts, another significant aspect of lowering the total cost of ownership.  With more and more mobile computing devices appearing in the workplace, the extended battery life is critical.

According to Rob Crooke, Intel corporate vice president and general manager for the Non-Volatile Memory Solutions Group, “The modern business employee is increasingly mobile and works in multiple environments.  The Intel SSD Pro 1500 Series ensures employees have the flexibility, battery life and performance they need, while IT has the assurance data is secure and the device can be managed remotely.  Tight integration with Intel vPro Technology means we are able to deliver a complete solution for corporate business users.”

Rick Echevarria, Intel’s vice president of PC Client Group and general manager of the Business Client Platform Division, states that “By improving security, manageability and TCO, the professional Family of Intel SSDs will enable more mobile devices such as vPro Technology-powered PCs to further penetrate the enterprise while delivering faster start-up and improved battery life.  We believe the combination of these solid-state drives, vPro Technology and tools such as Intel Setup and Configuration Software will trigger innovation among ISVs and improve enterprise PCs in the near future.”

The Intel SSD Pro 1500 Series is offered in both a 2.5″ (7mm) standard form factor, and in the new M.2 (NGFF) form factor.  Both versions are offered in capacities of 80GB, 120GB, 160GB, 240Gb and 360GB; with the 2.5″ model adding a 480GB capacity.  Both form factors will utilize 20nm Intel Multi-Level Cell (MLC) NAND Flash memory, controlled by a LSI-SandForce SF2281 controller and connected via a SATA 6GB/s interface.

Both Pro1500 form factor SSDs are stated to attain sequential read speeds of up to 540 MB/s, and writes of up to 490 MB/s.  Random read and write IOPS are stated as 41,000 IOPS and 80,000 IOPS, respectively.  Drive life expectancy is stated as 1,200,000 hours Mean Time Between Failures (MTBF).  Intel’s standard warranty will apply to the Pro 1500 series.  Pricing and availability have yet to be announced.