Intel has launched its new Solid-State Drive (SSD) DC S3500 Series for data centers and cloud computing.

Designed for read-intensive applications such as web hosting, cloud computing and data center virtualization, Intel said its DC S3500 Series is an ideal replacement for traditional hard disk drives (HDD), allowing data centers to save significant costs by moving toward an all-SSD storage model.

Intel said by using SSDs customers can experience quicker web page loads and improved response times as a result of dramatically improved data access times and reduced latency.

IT managers and cloud developers can also see improved TCO as a result of reduced power consumption, more consistent performance and smaller space requirements.

Intel said more than half of US businesses now employ cloud computing applications and IDC predicts that worldwide spending on cloud services will reach $44.2 bn this year.

In corporate VP for the Non-Volatile Memory Solutions Group Rob Crooke said data centers powering these cloud applications need to quickly, efficiently and reliably scale to handle the tremendous growth of connected users and data traffic.

"The Intel SSD DC S3500 Series breaks through barriers - like the need for high throughput/low latency storage with a low total cost of ownership - to deliver the storage solution that meets the needs of the cloud and its demand for storage, which has exploded in recent years," Crooke said.

“Intel's data center family of SSDs helps make cloud computing faster and more reliable, enabling more transactions and richer experiences."

Into CIO Kim Stevenson said in cloud computing and data center environments, fast and consistent performance, reduced power consumption, high multicore CPU utilization and stress-free data protection are important requirements.

"Intel SSDs have enabled our chip designers to gain up to 27% performance throughput in our massive design distributed computing environment," Stevenson said.

"In fact, we are increasing our deployment of Intel SSDs in our data centers from 10,000 units to 40,000 by the end of this year to enable our global design team to help bring products to market faster."

By combining 20nm Intel NAND Flash Memory technology with SATA 6 Gb/s interface support, the Intel SSD DC S3500 Series delivers sequential read speeds of up to 500 MB/s and sequential write speeds of up to 450 MB/s and a tight distribution of input/outputs per second with low maximum latencies. Random read performance can go up to 75,000 input-output operations per second.

The Intel SSD DC S3500 Series also includes data protection features to address IT and data center professional's concerns of data loss.

Built-in capacitors provide a short period of backup power to the drive allowing it to finish operations in the event of power loss. The drives also use 256-bit AES encryption for data protection.

The new SSDs will be offered in capacities ranging from 80GB to 800GB and both 2.5 and 1.8 inch form factors. Available through Intel distributors and resellers, the Intel DC S3500 Series is offered at the suggested channel price of $115 for a 1.8-inch 80GB drive and $979 for a 2.5-inch 800GB drive. It is also accompanied by a 5-year warranty.