Breaking Records With SSDs: 16 Intel X25-Es Do 2.2 GB/s

Our choice was Intel’s X25-E flash SSD, which is based on more expensive single-level cell (SLC) flash memory. Compared to Samsung’s multi-level cell (MLC) flash, SLC can provide shorter latencies and higher throughput for both reads and writes. One drawback remains: while Samsung’s PB22-J provides a massive 256 GB capacity, Intel’s X25-E professional SSDs still max out at 64 GB. Fortunately, the capacity difference didn’t matter in our race for performance, as only 16 of Intel’s flash SSDs were enough to beat the 24 drives used in Samsung’s video.