Intel SSD 330 Review: 60, 120, And 180 GB Models Benchmarked

[acku]

Intel recently introduced its SSD 330 family, positioned ahead of the SSD 320s and below the SSD 520s. Like the company's highest-end models, these drives employ SandForce's controller technology. We bought all three capacities and ran our tests on them.

Intel SSD 330 Review: 60, 120, And 180 GB Models Benchmarked : Read more

 

[Au_equus]

I bought this samsung 830 256gb ssd for $390 five-six months ago
http://www.newegg.com/Product/Product.aspx?Item=N82E16820147164
now its $275 or $1.074/GB. Better price/stability/performance than those listed above.

 

[phamhlam]

[citation][nom]au_equus[/nom]I bought this samsung 830 256gb ssd for $390 five-six months agohttp://www.newegg.com/Product/Prod [...] 6820147164now its $275 or $1.074/GB. Better price/stability/performance than those listed above.[/citation]

Crucial m4 128GB from Newegg and Amazon @ 124.99. That is less than $1/GB.

 

[Guest]

One question, which didn't explained: what Intel SSD is better for SATA 3Gb/sec 320 or 330 series?

 

[blazorthon]

Intel should have used non-SandForce controllers. The Vertex 4 (with the new firmware) shows what Sandforce alternatives are capable of, I hope that Intel's next flagship series does something similarly spectacular without Sandforce. I think that Intel could have used the 330s as a stepping stone to get a controller (such as a Marvell controller) up to Vertex 4-like performance (or better) in more universal workloads than Sandforce for their next flagship series.

On that note, why weren't the Vertex 4s included in this review with the other drives?

 

[blazorthon]

[citation][nom]Eovein[/nom]One question, which didn't explained: what Intel SSD is better for SATA 3Gb/sec 320 or 330 series?[/citation]

I don't think that it makes much difference at SATA 3Gb/s, but the 330s are faster drives, so they might be marginally better.

 

[chimera201]

When will the price of SSD come down to HDD level? That would be news.

 

[blazorthon]

[citation][nom]chimera201[/nom]When will the price of SSD come down to HDD level? That would be news.[/citation]

Probably at least not until a cheaper memory than Flash is used in SSDs, so maybe ten to twenty years, if we're lucky.

 

[EDVINASM]

Am not a mad scientist or anything so I have missed something but to me Intel SSD is as good as any others on the market. I wouldn't see any difference in real world scenario between 330 and 520 or Samsung 830 or even M4. Who cares? I don't anyway. Just get the drive that you trust and that has reasonable warranty (3 years +) and good support. Done.

 

[blazorthon]

[citation][nom]edvinasm[/nom]Am not a mad scientist or anything so I have missed something but to me Intel SSD is as good as any others on the market. I wouldn't see any difference in real world scenario between 330 and 520 or Samsung 830 or even M4. Who cares? I don't anyway. Just get the drive that you trust and that has reasonable warranty (3 years +) and good support. Done.[/citation]

Whether or not a part that is faster for your workloads than others and is faster enough to make a difference depends on what you are doing. If I was doing a lot of storage heavy stuff, like constantly downloading and decompressing large archives, then an SSD that can deal with in-compressible data very well would provide very noticeable gains over any SandForce drive or any lower end non-Sandforce drives.

 

[EDVINASM]

[citation][nom]blazorthon[/nom]Whether or not a part that is faster for your workloads than others and is faster enough to make a difference depends on what you are doing. If I was doing a lot of storage heavy stuff, like constantly downloading and decompressing large archives, then an SSD that can deal with in-compressible data very well would provide very noticeable gains over any SandForce drive or any lower end non-Sandforce drives.[/citation]

Fair point. Mind you, if you do that much and it's that important hardly any of standard (consumer grade) SSDs would interest you. Unless you are talking of downloading software and games from questionable sites, then yes - cheap and fast is cheerful.

 

[blazorthon]

[citation][nom]edvinasm[/nom]Fair point. Mind you, if you do that much and it's that important hardly any of standard (consumer grade) SSDs would interest you. Unless you are talking of downloading software and games from questionable sites, then yes - cheap and fast is cheerful.[/citation]

Well, I think that Steam would be a perfectly legal example for this. I also happen to play around with many OSs in VMs, so I'm often downloading each new version of many different Linux distributions and other operating systems (such as React OS and Haiku). I also download and test out a lot of freeware and some of them can get pretty big.

 

[EDVINASM]

[citation][nom]blazorthon[/nom]Well, I think that Steam would be a perfectly legal example for this. I also happen to play around with many OSs in VMs, so I'm often downloading each new version of many different Linux distributions and other operating systems (such as React OS and Haiku). I also download and test out a lot of freeware and some of them can get pretty big.[/citation]

Good point. What SSD do you use if you don't mind me asking? And how long have you been using it? Any issues? I had Intel 320 80GB but that was just for few months. Getting SSD 330 120GB now, not sure how it will perform but anything that is faster than RAID 0 HDD and is quiet would be better in my book. Never mind the storage amount.

 

[blazorthon]

[citation][nom]edvinasm[/nom]Good point. What SSD do you use if you don't mind me asking? And how long have you been using it? Any issues? I had Intel 320 80GB but that was just for few months. Getting SSD 330 120GB now, not sure how it will perform but anything that is faster than RAID 0 HDD and is quiet would be better in my book. Never mind the storage amount.[/citation]

I have little money to throw around right now. I don't have an SSD yet, by I think I'll grab a Vertex 4 if I can get around to it. For now, RAID 0 hard drives has been the best that I could get. It's not great at all, but it's what I could afford and it could be worse.

 

[dgingeri]

What's with all the "raw" benchmarks? We don't use these things "raw". We use them with file systems. These things perform differently with file systems installed.

 

[nekromobo]

On amazon crucial m4 was 199$ for atleast 1 weekend.. even at 240$ its a steal. been a happy user for 8 months now and about to get my 2nd M4

 

[beavermml]

i currently own 320s for my boot drive just for casual stuff and i notice tremendous performance compared with normal HDD.. if i upgraded to 330s do i get more performance? how many seconds can i shaved more from booting? since using SSD i do not standby my pc anymore..

 

[bartholomew]

[citation][nom]chimera201[/nom]When will the price of SSD come down to HDD level? That would be news.[/citation]

One could only wish. I'm waiting for HDD prices to come down to HDD level!.

 

[blazorthon]

[citation][nom]beavermml[/nom]i currently own 320s for my boot drive just for casual stuff and i notice tremendous performance compared with normal HDD.. if i upgraded to 330s do i get more performance? how many seconds can i shaved more from booting? since using SSD i do not standby my pc anymore..[/citation]

It won't be nearly as distinct of a difference. Unless you do work that makes fairly small differences in storage performance very obvious, you probably won't notice any difference. The 330s are considerably faster than the 320s, but even the 320s are orders of magnitude faster than HDDs for random accesses and a few times faster than HDDs for sequential throughput. The difference between the 320s and HDDs is far greater than the difference between the 320s and 330s.

 

[Chainzsaw]

IMO Intel's SSD's are overpriced for what they are.

 

[phump]

Literally every value analysis on Tom's is invalidated by their neglect of real world prices. Newegg has the 330s well under $1/gb. How could I ever care who a false price is aimed at attracting?

 

[xonic]

reliability reliability reliability. I could care less if my web browser loads in 0.02 second vs 0.019 second. I do care if my SSD crashes and I have to wait 5 weeks for RMA. Tom's please do more tests on reliability.

 

[blazorthon]

[citation][nom]phump[/nom]Literally every value analysis on Tom's is invalidated by their neglect of real world prices. Newegg has the 330s well under $1/gb. How could I ever care who a false price is aimed at attracting?[/citation]

Newegg prices for the Intel 330 drives:
60GB = $79.99
120GB = $149.99
180GB = $199.99

Also, they all say that they are temporary discounts from much higher prices too. Are you seriously lying about their cost?

http://www.newegg.com/Product/ProductList.aspx?Submit=ENE&N=100011693+50001157+600052674&IsNodeId=1&name=MLC&Page=1

Without the temporary discounts, their prices would be as follows:
60GB = $99.99
120GB = $149.99
180GB = $249.99

The 120GB model does not claim to be on sale, but it is the 120GB version and these generally have the best capacity per GB.

 

[occupant]

My wife has the 320 in her machine, 120GB size if I remember right. Replaced a 60GB OCZ Vertex 2 that was too small for her core group of OS and apps. She's plenty happy with it.

I on the other hand, would want more performance than the 320 can provide. However, my motherboard only does SATA 3GB. So there's no point in getting an SSD priced over $1/GB regardless of performance. The Agility 3 in 120GB would be appropriate for $115 and it would be something I could carry over to a new build. The 330 just doesn't appeal to me.

"folks who want to save money but simply can't stand to use a 3 Gb/s drive"

Yeah, that's me, but not for a $35 price premium.

 

[phump]

[citation][nom]blazorthon[/nom]Newegg prices for the Intel 330 drives:60GB = $79.99120GB = $149.99180GB = $199.99Also, they all say that they are temporary discounts from much higher prices too. Are you seriously lying about their cost?http://www.newegg.com/Product/Prod [...] MLC&Page=1Without the temporary discounts, their prices would be as follows:60GB = $99.99120GB = $149.99180GB = $249.99The 120GB model does not claim to be on sale, but it is the 120GB version and these generally have the best capacity per GB.[/citation]

http://images10.newegg.com/uploadfilesfornewegg/rebate/SH/Intel2MIRsMay14May2912ey39.pdf

You can name all the reasons rebates shouldn't be considered, but when a rebate is 30% off (of the sale price as you say), your can be sure I'm going to take advantage of it.