Intel, Hitachi to Develop Solid-State Drives

Intel (INTC Quote) and Hitachi(HIT Quote) plan to jointly develop solid-state drives for servers, workstations and storage systems.

The first products from the collaboration are expected to be available in early 2010, the companies said in a press release Tuesday.

The new solid-state drives will be branded and exclusively sold and supported by Hitachi, and use Intel NAND flash memory and technology.

The companies also plan to share research and development costs, according to a report in the New York Times.

Intel and other players are hoping the drives will become popular for data-center computers used by corporate customers -- potentially a more profitable market than the consumer laptops where the solid state drives are mostly used now, the Times reports.

The release of products in the early part of 2010 makes the companies late to the market. STEC, a company that sells solid state drives, will ship products valued at $50 million to business customers this year, the newspaper reports. Samsung also is a leading seller of solid state drives.