NAND from the Intel-Micron Flash Technologies foundries is a common sight in the TR labs. The fruits of Intel and Micron's (soon-to-be-defunct) joint partnership end up in a wide array of internal and removable media. It might surprise you to recall, then, that the last mainstream Intel-branded drive we reviewed was the trailblazing 750 Series nigh on three years ago. Well, there was Optane, but that one's a bit of an odd duck. In any event, Intel hasn't been sitting on its hands in all that time, but the drives constituting the company's current lineup haven't found their way into our hands of late.

The name of the game for that lineup now is 3D NAND. Intel introduced IMFT's second-generation, 64-layer 3D TLC into its client portfolio with the SSD 545s last summer. That left the older NVMe SSD 600p in a bit of an awkward position. The PCIe drive was left to languish on the previous-gen, 32-layer stuff and could barely outpace the new SATA drive on paper.