Intel today announced an addition to the Intel Solid-State Drive (SSD) Professional Family: the Intel SSD Pro 2500 Series. This new business-class SSD delivers security and manageability features, and fast SSD performance. To help businesses mitigate the threat of breaches, the Intel Pro 2500 Series SSDs are self-encrypting drives (SED) utilizing hardware-based 256-bit encryption to protect data without a loss of performance. Additionally, the new Intel drives feature the Trusted Computing Group's OPAL 2.0 standard and are Microsoft eDrive capable. These policy-based controls help to prevent data breaches and support crypto erase to repurpose the drive for reuse.

In an environment with Intel vPro Technology, with Intel Setup and Configuration Software and leading security software, the Pro 2500 Series drives can be managed remotely allowing IT to monitor and report drive health as well as track assets and remedy faults.

The Intel SSD Professional Family is part of the Intel Stable Image Platform Program, including a 15-month availability of the components and drivers for compatibility and stability across a qualified IT image. The new series also features five power modes helping to balance performance and power to enable a longer battery life.

The Intel SSD Pro 2500 Series will be available in both 2.5-inch and M.2 form factors and in capacities ranging from 120GB to 480GB. The SSDs are backed by a 5-year limited warranty and features an annualized failure rate (AFR) well below 1 percent.

The latest SSD entry is based on the same SandForce controller and 6Gbps SATA interface as the the Pro 1500, and the performance specifications haven't changed, though there are some new low-power states designed specifically for Intel's upcoming Broadwell platform. The drives have peak random performance of 48,000 reads and 80,000 writes input/output per second (IOPS). They have a top sequential read performance of 540MB/s and a top write performance of 490MB/s.

The new SSDs use 20-nm NAND by SK Hynix and not by Intel's joint fabrication venture with Micron. It seems that increased demand drove the decision to source NAND from a third-party manufacturer.

The Pro 2500 is scheduled to start selling today at $85 for 80GB, $95 for 120GB, $130 for 180GB, $160 for 240GB, and $305 for 480GB.