Intel Document Details 1.5TB And 960GB Optane SSD 900P Solid State Drives
One of the biggest downsides that we saw with the Intel's new Optane solutions, other than its "average" sequential read transfer rates for large files, was that it was only available in relatively small capacities. At launch, the Optane SSD 900P series could be had in 280GB or 480GB capacities. However, a document [PDF] that was found lurking on Intel's website shows that far larger drives are incoming.
The "Production Change Notification" document (with a publish date of December 12th, 2017), could easily be dismissed as a run-of-the-mill publication for channel partners. However, a keen eye will spot that there are two additional capacities found to complement the current 280GB and 480GB offerings. The first is a 960GB SSD, while a new range-topping SKU is listed with a capacity of 1.5TB. Intel also listed changes to labeling for the drives and some updates to current draw specifications.
Unfortunately, there is no word on pricing for the 960GB or 1.5TB SKUs, and there is no indication of what form-factors they will be offered in. However, we'd expect that Half Height Half Length (HHHL) add-in card and 2.5-inch U.2 form-factors would be made available, as they are in the current product family.
Intel's Optane SSD 900P series is rated for sustained sequential read/write performance of 2500MB/s and 2000MB/s respectively and has random 4K read/write performance of 550,000 and 500,000 IOPs respectively. The 280GB and 480GB drives are priced at $389 and $599, so figure prices closer to $1,000 for the 960GB SKU and well beyond that point for the 1.5TB model.
And given the timing of this document release, we should expect the newest members of the Optane SSD 900P series sooner rather than later.
