Intel announced today that it has bumped the Optane SSD 905P's capacity up to 1.5TB, which will come in both U.2 and HHHL (half height, half length) add-in-card (AIC) form factors.
Built around Intel's 3D XPoint memory technology, the Optane SSD 905P was originally launched in 480GB and 960GB capacities. The 480GB model was confined to the U.2 form factor, and the 960GB model took the form of an AIC. Starting today, consumers can pick up the Optane-powered SSD in three new presentations. The 960GB model is now available in the U.2 format. The new 1.5TB model is available in both the U.2 and HHHL AIC form factors. In fact, we first saw the 1.5TB AIC variant inside the Falcon Northwest Tiki gaming desktop, so they should be on the market very soon.
Since all Intel Optane SSD 905P drives employ the same internal hardware and communicate with the processor through a PCIe 3.0 x4 interface, performance is fairly static across all models no matter the capacity or form factor. Consumers can expect sequential read and write speeds up to 2,700MB/s and 2,200MB/s with 4K random read and write speeds in the range of 575,000 IOPS and 550,000 IOPS. The 480GB model is rated with an endurance of 8.76 PBW (petabytes written), while the 960GB and 1.5TB models have a 17.52 PBW and 27.37 PBW rating, respectively.
The Optane SSD 905P will be making its way to the M.2 form factor in the not-so-distant future. It will initially launch in a 380GB capacity; it's unknown whether Intel will offer them in larger capacities. The chipmaker hasn't listed the technical specifications for the M.2 drive. Nevertheless, we don't expect its performance to be on par with the AIC models, but perhaps more in line with similar M.2 Optane SSDs
Intel didn't reveal the pricing for the new Optane SSD 905P drives. However, Cleveland-based computer hardware retailer CompSource has already listed the SSDs on its website. The Optane SSD 905P 960GB U.2 (SSDPE21D960GAX1) costs $1,415.39. The Optane SSD 905P 1.5TB, in U.2 (SSDPE21D015TAX1) and HHHL AIC (SSDPED1D015TAX1) formats carry even more eye-watering price tags of $2,395.70 each.
