Premature Listings Hint at Affordable Prices for Intel's 330 Series Solid State Drives

Have you been waiting for a performance oriented solid state drive with a price-per-gigabyte ratio that doesn't make you want to throw up a little bit in your mouth? Sure you have, because up to this point, good deals have been hard to come by, especially if you rule out any that require doing the whole mail-in-rebate ritual. Well folks, while we don't want to get too far ahead of ourselves, but there's reason to be optimistic that things are about to change.

Several websites have begun posting listings for Intel's upcoming 330 Series solid state drive (SSD) line, and the prices are, well, not all that bad, actually. Sabre PC, for example, has the Intel 330 Series listed at the following price points:

• Intel 330 Series 60GB: $89
• Intel 330 Series 120GB: $149
• Intel 330 Series 180GB: $234

Those are fairly decent prices, especially for the 120GB, which represents the best bang-for-buck out of all three at $1.24 per gigabyte. And keep in mind that these are SATA 6Gbps drives rated for up to 500MB/s read and up to 450MB/s write speeds. They also boast 256-bit AES encryption and come with  3-year warranties.

If this is how these prices shake out in the market place, do you see yourself picking one up?