Kingston unveils first solid state drives

Kingston is making its first foray into the solid state drive (SSD) market using technology developed by Intel.

The memory maker has kicked off with two products in its SSDNow line, the E Series and M Series, essentially just rebranding Intel's own E and M series drives.

Jim Selby, Kingston's European product manager, told vnunet.com that the company had decided to license Intel's technology rather than develop its own because it did not want to "reinvent the wheel".

"Intel has clearly got it right when it comes to SSDs and this partnership will help both companies drive the adoption of SSDs in 2009," he said.

Selby reckons that SSDs have come of age, and that new technologies have overcome issues around speed and reliability.

Intel's SSDs are widely considered to be the highest performing drives available. The E series is specifically designed for server environments requiring high input/output operations per second performance.

The SSDNow M series is designed for the mobile power user market, giving faster boot times, quicker application load times and longer battery life.

The drives use a standard 2.5in form factor and Sata interface, meaning that they can easily be integrated into existing systems and product ranges.

Under the Kingston brand they will be backed by the company's three-year warranty, 24/7 tech support and KingstonCare, a suite of tools and services designed to reduce downtime.

Mark Leathem, director of Flash business development at Kingston Digital, said: "The combination of the fastest SSDs in the world, along with Kingston's tremendous distribution capabilities and legendary customer service, will position us to succeed in this arena."

Kingston's SSDNow E Series 32GB and SSDNow M Series 80GB drives will sell for £591.79 (US$891) and £433.98 (US$653) respectively, excluding tax.

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