Legit Storage Reviews
Intel X25-M 160GB 34nm MLC G2 SSD Benchmark Review
| Manufacturer: | Intel |
| Product: | SSDSA1MH160G2 |
| Date: | Thu, Jul 23, 2009 - 12:00 AM |
| Written By: | Nathan Kirsch - |
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Final Thoughts and Conclusions
Capacity
When it comes to storage capacity, the Intel X25-M 160GB has a free capacity of 149GB as shown above. This should be enough for many consumers, and in the server and enterprise environments many of these will be run in RAID arrays.
Final Thoughts and Conclusions
It was hard for us to get excited about SSDs this year because we knew Microsoft was going to be launching the Windows 7 operating system this Fall and a new feature called TRIM would be enabled by default. The majority of SSDs that have been sold up to this point will never be able to support TRIM as the controller won't support it or the drive has firmware that can't be user upgradable. This is the main reason that Legit Reviews was one of the very few review sites that didn't give the original Intel X25-M an award when it came out. There were two reasons for that. The first being that Legit Reviews was the first and only site to point out that Intel had a performance degradation issue with their drive. The second was the fact that it is hard to endorse a product that costs nearly $1000 knowing that it would not support the features our readers would want once Windows 7 comes out. Intel addressed our first concern by released firmware version 8820, which fixed the performance degradation and fragmentation issue that was common with normal use. The second concern has now been fixed with the release of the Intel X25-M G2. Intel has taken everything they have learned from the launch of their first generation drive and have either fixed it or improved it on this new series. On top of that, the random file access and random write performance is also much better. Intel has really outdone themselves this time and it goes to show that when everything falls into place the end result is a great product. With nothing obviously wrong with the Intel X25-M G2, it makes us wonder what they will have in store for us with their third generation!
When it comes to pricing, Intel informed us that the channel price quoted for the X-25M 80GB is $225 (down from $595 at introduction one year ago) and the 160GB version is $440 (down from $945) for quantities up to 1,000 units. Online e-tailors like ZipZoomFly.com already have the Intel X25 G2 drives listed and are asking $433.99 for the 160GB version and $223.25 for the 80GB version. That puts the price per actual usable GB down to around $2.91 per GB on the 160GB model, which is very competitive with other brands. For example, the Corsair P128 SSD retails for $345.99, which is $2.88 per GB and the OCZ Vertex 120GB retails for $339 after rebate or $2.82 per GB (using current pricing). That means the Intel drives are priced very competitively in the market and as a result other companies might be forced to lower their sale prices. Actually, OCZ Technology just announced that they will be lowering SSD prices in the weeks ahead to be more competitive with Intel SSDs.
Don't get too excited and try to run out and buy one now, though, as they are out of stock at the time this review was published. Intel is in the process of shipping drives to retailers, so they should be available shortly and based on our testing results they should sell out rather quickly.
This is the eleventh solid-state drive that this editor has benchmarked and it will be the first that gets the Legit Reviews Editor's Choice Award. This drive is aimed at the mainstream market and the feature set and performance numbers are perfect for the intended market. This is hands down the best SSD that we have seen to date.
Legit Bottom Line: The Intel X25-M 160GB G2 Solid-State Drive is the real deal and is ideal for mainstream computers that will be making the move to Windows 7 when it comes out in October 2009.
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| Review Index |
|
Page 1 - 34nm Flash Meets Intel X25-M 2nd Gen SSDs
Page 2 - Inside The 2nd Generation Intel SSDs Page 3 - The Test System Page 4 - HD Tach v3.0.4.0 Page 5 - HD Tune v3.50 Page 6 - HD Tune v3.50 - Random Accesss Page 7 - SiSoftware Sandra 2009 SP3 Page 8 - CrystalDiskMark v2.2 Page 9 - ATTO Disk Benchmark v2.34 Page 10 - PCMark Vantage Page 11 - AS SSD Benchmark Page 12 - Performance Degradation Testing Page 13 - Final Thoughts and Conclusions |
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