In the wake of last Friday's leak, Intel has now formally announced its Mainstream series of SSD drives. Models will be available in 1.8- and 2.5-inch sizes, and rely on MLC (multi-level cell) NAND memory, which should in theory aid to keep prices down. One of the first examples is the 80GB X25-M, which is also Intel's first SATA-based SSD for notebook and desktop OEM builders.

Intel has yet to reveal pricing for any of the Mainstream drives, but claims that benchmarking shows a 50 percent boost in system performance, and a nine-times enhancement in HDD performance. While expensive and short on capacity, SSD drives are becoming an increasingly common alternative to regular hard disks, due to their faster seek times and increased reliability.