According to the latest report, Intel's first client SSDs, known under the Optane brand and based on the new 3D XPoint memory technology, could launch alongside Intel's 7th generation Core Kaby Lake CPUs in late 2016.

According to the leaked slide over at BenchLife.info, the new Optane SSDs could be launched in either late Q4 2016 or early Q1 2017 and cover three market segments.

The high-end is the Optane Mansion Beach SSD, which will cover the Enthusiast Workstation market segment and feature PCIe 3.0 x4 interface with NVMe support. The Optane Brighton Beach will have a PCIe gen 3.0 x2 interface and will still serve the enthusiast workstation market segment.

Unfortunately, it appears that Intel won't launch a mainstream Optane SSD this year but rather only an entry-level System Acceleration market segment drive, the Optane Stony Beach SSD, which will be available in M.2 form-factor and use PCIe gen 3 x2 interface.

In future, Mansion Beach Optane SSD will have a refresh while Brighton Beach will be replaced with Carson Beach, which should cover both entry-level (System Acceleration) and higher-end Enthusiast Workstation segments.

Mainstream market will still be covered with Intel's PCIe Pro 6000p and 600p as well as Pro 5400s and 540s SATA and PCIe/NVMe SSDs only to be upgraded to 2nd gen 3DNAND SSDs sometime next year.

Intel is promising impressive performance improvements with its 3D XPoint memory technology so hopefully we will see its first Optane SSDs later this year.





Source: Benchlife.info.