Intel has made available the Intel SSD DC S3710 Series and the Intel SSD DC S3610 Series of server-grade drives. Both employ a high-endurance variant of Intel's own 20-nm MLC NAND. The S3710 succeeds the S3700, which was introduced back in 2012 with 25-nm NAND. The older drive is based on a proprietary Intel controller with a 6Gbps host link, and the new model uses an updated version of that chip. The top capacity is up from 800GB to 1.2TB.

Intel says that the new S3710 Series delivers up to 25 percent more write performance than the previous generation SSD. The company rates the S3710 Series for up to 550MB/s sequential reads and 520MB/s sequential writes, plus up to 85k IOps with random reads and 45k with random writes. The endurance rating is unchanged at 10 drive writes per day for the length of the five-year warranty.

The Intel SSD DC S3610 Series is a new mid-level SSD delivering up to two times greater write performance than entry level data center SSDs. The five-year warranty is the same. Endurance is pegged at three drive writes per day. The S3610 isn't as speedy as the S3710. Most of the peak rates are comparable, but random writes top out at 28k IOps.

As for pricing, the S3610 ranges from $1.05-1.07 per GB, while the S3710 lists for $1.50-1.59.