Intel's much talked about "Larson Creek" 311 Series entry-level SATA solid state drive (SSD), which forms the foundation of Intel Smart Response technology was pictured and tested. The SSD comes in a standard-looking 2.5-inch shell resembling many other Intel SSD models. Unlike the more popular X25-M series, the 311 Series SSDs use 34 nm single-level cell (SLC) NAND flash memory, and comes in low capacities such as 20 GB. That's not even enough capacity to install the OS and important applications (which is barely possible on 40 GB SSDs), but that's not the purpose of the SSD. It assists hard drives, acting as a fast "cache", storing only the most important system and program files. Upon opening, one can see Intel-made controller and NAND flash chips. The 311 Series "Larson Creek" 20 GB SSD was put through a run of CrystalDiskMark, where it clocked transfer rates of nearly 199 MB/s sequential read, and 114 MB/s sequential write.