What the heck is going on with Intel’s next-generation SSDs?

Intel first announced its second generation consumer solid-state drives on July 21. There were plenty of positive reviews at the time, and the price drop combined with better performance made me ready to take the plunge.

A few days later, a defect was found. Intel has historically done a good job of issuing patches, so I assumed that a firmware fix would not be a big deal. But then they disappeared from store shelves (by which I mean e-tailers like Amazon and NewEgg).

Now it’s mid-September, and it’s been very hard to find someone willing to ship one. I’ve seen prices on Amazon vary from $269 to over $400 for the 80G version (SSDSA2MH080G2). Such pricing volatility means they are having trouble knowing what the supply will be. And they are quoting a ship time of 2 to 4 weeks.

I think SSDs are a sea change and will follow a cycle like that of LCDs a few years ago. So where the heck is Intel?