Intel SSD 665p Series Released With 96-Layer QLC And Sweet Performance Boost
Intel is expanding its solid state drive (SSD) family with the SSD 665p, essentially an upgraded version of the previous generation SSD 660p. Like its predecessor, the SSD 665p is built around 3D quad-level cell (QLC) NAND flash memory chips (four bits per layer), but these are 96-layer components, whereas the SSD 660p uses 64-layer 3D QLC NAND flash memory.
This new series also gets a bump in baseline capacity.
Instead of starting at 512GB, the SSD 665p series is only shipping in 2TB and 1TB capacities, at least for the time being (it's not clear if Intel will stretch the SSD 665p series out in either direction).
As with the previous generation offering, the SSD 665p series is a consumer product. The drives are being offered in the M.2 2280 form factor shaped like a stick of bubblegum, with an NVMe interface, with support for PCI Express 3.0 x4.
That means the performance of these drives is not on the same breakneck level as the recent crop of PCIe 4.0 SSDs, though compared to SATA 6Gbps SSDs, they are much speedier.
The 2TB model is the faster of the two. It is rated to deliver up to 2,000MB/s of sequential read and write performance, along with 250,000 IOPS of random reads and writes. The 1TB model offers the same 2,000MB/s sequential read performance, but slightly lower sequential writes at 1,925MB/s. As for random reads and writes, they are rated at 160,000 IOPS and 250,000 IOPS, respectively.
- 2TB: 2,000MB/s seq. read, 2,000MB/s seq. write, 250K IOPS random read, 250K IOPS random write
- 1TB: 2,000MB/s seq. read, 1,925MB/s seq. write, 160K IOPS random read, 250K IOPS random write
Intel's upgrade to 96-layer NAND essentially means we are looking at 13 percent better performance and 50 percent higher endurance, the company claims. The latter claim translates to endurance ratings of 600 terabytes written (TBW) for the 2TB model and 300 TBW for the 1TB. On the previous generation, endurance ratings on the 2TB and 1TB drives stood at 400 TBW and 200 TBW, respectively.
Interestingly, Intel's ARK listing for the 1TB model pegs the pricing at $159-$307, a rather wide range, while no such information is shown on the 2TB listing. This leads me to believe the 1TB model will be priced around $159 and the 2TB model around $307, rather than the entire range applying solely to the 1TB model.
It's not clear when these drives will be available to purchase.
