Intel's 525 series of solid-state drives with microSATA connector, to be released in the next year, has been pictured and tested in a Next Unit of Computing system. The test sample featured a 180 GB drive which performed similarly to larger 2.5-inch SSDs. The 525 is based on an LSI-SandForce SF2281 controller, with data being stored on Intel's own 6-channel 20nm MLC NAND memory chips.
In the Anvil Storage Utilities benchmark, the solid-state drive reaches sequential reading speeds of 504 MB/s for compressible data and 463 MB/s for incompressible data. Writing speeds of respectively 468 and 240 MB/s have been observed. The drive performs 55.841 IOPS in the 4K random write test. It's possible that the new Intel SSD will be featured in upcoming Ultrabooks.
