“We are in the midst of an era of major data center transformation, driven by Intel. These new “ruler” form factor SSDs and dual port SSDs are the latest in a long line of innovations we’ve brought to market to make storing and accessing data easier and faster, while delivering more value to customers,” said Bill Leszinske, Intel vice president, Non-Volatile Memory Solutions Group (NSG), and director, strategic planning, marketing and business development.

The new “ruler” form factor, so-called for its long, skinny shape, shifts storage from the legacy 2.5-inch and 3.5-inch form factors that follow traditional hard disk drives, and the add-in card form factor, which takes advantage of PCIe card slots, and delivers on the promise of non-volatile storage technologies to eliminate constraints on shape and size.

The new form factor delivers the most storage capacity for a server, with the lowest required cooling and power needs. The next-generation “ruler” form factor SSDs using Intel 3D NAND technology will enable up to 1PB in a 1U server – enough storage for 300,000 HD movies, or about 70 years of nonstop entertainment. Both Intel Optane SSDs and Intel 3D NAND SSDs in the “ruler” form factor will come to market in the near future.

Dual port Intel Optane SSDs and Intel® 3D NAND SSDs offer critical redundancy and failover, protecting against multiple paths to failure for mission-critical and high-availability applications. Dual port SSDs replace SAS SSDs and HDDs and, with new storage technologies, deliver more IOPS, more bandwidth and lower latency than SAS SSDs. Dual port Intel SSD DC D4500, D4502 and D4600 Series will be available starting in 2017’s third quarter.