Kingston announced that they will be selling the new Intel SSD product line. This is not the first time that Kingston and Intel have teamed up, as Kingston has previously worked with Intel on memory validation and development. This will mark Kingston’s first real assault into the SSD product space.

The new Intel SSDs featured some good performance with Intel claiming that the SSDs yielded up to 240MB per second in read performance, with 170MB per second in write performance. Intel is building both a 2.5-inch model for the enterprise market space, as well as 2.5-inch and 1.8 inch models for the consumer device segment with somewhat slower performance.

Details seem to still be a bit up in the air as to which devices Kingston will be selling. With the market for consumer-oriented SSDs still soft due to high prices, it seems logical that Kingston will focus on the server and enterprise market spaces first. It is also logical that they will be selling the SSDs to partners such as Dell and HP.

While most agree that the SSD market needs to mature and prices need to come down, the decision to team with Intel is likely a good one for Kingston who can avoid the difficult and expensive development of their own SSD products while the market matures. Kingston has had a tradition of being a bit slow to respond to roll out products into new market segments, but they would rather wait until the market space is established before moving.