Intel details SSD plans for 2010

After a year that saw the X25 series make Intel the market leader in retail and e-tail, the chip giant is planning to lower prices with an eye towards moving greater SSD volumes in the mainstream market. A new generation of drives based on die-shrunk flash memory will apparently enable the next wave of discounts. While it didn't reveal when those new drives will arrive, we can apparently expect higher capacities than are available with Intel's existing X25-series SSDs. Support for the 6Gbps Serial ATA standard isn't on the menu until 2011, though. Since it's focusing on mainstream adoption this year, Intel is also looking at making disk cloning easier for those who buy its drives.