Intel's SSD legacy is dead in retail
Solidigm – formerly Intel's SSD division – no longer manufactures storage media for end customers. Classics like the 670p are being phased out.
Solidigm's never released SSD P42 Plus.
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SK Hynix is focusing the acquired Intel SSD division entirely on servers and data centers. Solidigm already discontinued all 660p, 670p, P41 Plus and P44 Pro end customer models in fall 2024. This initially went unnoticed in this country because retailers continued to sell off the remaining stock.
The Chinese website ITHome noticed that Solidigm drew attention to the discontinuation on its own product pages: "This will be discontinued" is translated there. The product pages can now only be found via search. The manufacturer has completely removed the tab for consumer SSDs.
In an overview of discontinued SSDs, Solidigm does not list any successors. The US website Tom's Hardware has issued a statement:
"Last year Solidigm notified our consumer SSD customers that the Solidigm P41 Plus and P44 Pro SSDs would be our final products and for future consumer products they should move to the SK hynix client roadmap with our parent company."
Unusual NAND flash chips
Intel's SSD technology is an oddity among storage media: formerly Intel and now Solidigm adheres to so-called floating gate technology, in which the charges for the storage state are stored in electrically isolated polysilicon gates. SK Hynix and other memory giants, on the other hand, rely on charge trap technology, in which films of silicon nitride hold the electrons.
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The Solidigm P41 Plus (test) was the last consumer SSD with Intel memory chips – virtually an Intel SSD 670p without the DRAM cache. The Solidigm P44 Pro was a relabeled SK Hynix Platinum P41 with SK Hynix memory.
Particularly curious: In the fall of 2023, Solidigm sent out test samples of a P42 Plus, but then canceled the presentation without further ado (see lead story). At the time, a spokesperson blamed the weak SSD market and spoke of a postponement. The P42 Plus was originally intended to replace the P41 Plus with a PCIe 4.0 upgrade. Memory modules with Solidigm labeling were soldered.
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