Intel Unveils 120GB SSD: The X25-M Sweet Spot

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[citation][nom]bildo123[/nom]You'll be sadly disappointed when all this SSD "boot drive" garbage is a thing of the past this time next year. I'm waiting out until I can get a 256GB SSDfor < $200. Although a stretch, I think this time next year it will be near that price.[/citation]


a few companies hve released tetra bite SDD's though right now they cost a small fortune (4000-5000) but not that long about a 250 gig SSD costed this same range , so i give it about 3-4 years before a tetra bite SSD comes down to around 300-400 buchs that a 250-300 gig oen cost today. I'll likely go SSD when i can atleat get a 512 gig one for around 300 bucks my self,but who know my current comp likely ahs a few more eyars on it so never know perhaps the tetra bite ones will drop drasticallya s more companies produce them in that size.
 
after all the talk, i finally just went out and bought one (crucial 128 gig nova) bought it local for about 240ish after tax. Hands down, its the best upgrade i've ever added to any one of my personal computer i've built. (which have been numerous through the years, and some quite expensive)
I was stepping up from 2x74gig WD raptors in raid-0 and the performance is slap you in the face obvious.
Highly recomended as your next upgrade, even above a new proccessor or video card!
 
It's amazing how many people are complaining about the price on here, then talking about the performance with the one they bought. You wanna send a msg to tell them that prices are too high? Don't buy the product. That's just like the people complaining about DX9 Graphics being terrible, but, don't want to upgrade past XP. Grow up, move on. Money talks, stop complaining and do something about it.
 
If you look up prices on 8G-16G SDHC cards, they are below $1/GB for quite some time now, interface, package, distribution and all. Install 16 16G cards, and you have 256G drive at 16x speed of 16G SDHC card for $250 even without cost savings from only single body, package, distribution etc (128M DDR memory buffers should cost just a couple of bucks given prices for 2G DIMMs). Obviously at $600 for 256G SSD now the producers of the SSDs and/or controllers have quite a margin.
 
Considering that there are already very reasonable SF based SSDs that are of the 128GB breed out there and plentiful for around $199-$249 I don't see this as being shattering.
 
[citation][nom]applegetsmelaid[/nom]Saw a 60GB SSD for $60 on Newegg on Nov 1, was sold out by noon! I wanted to cry. Gives me hope for another great deal this year though. Happy SSD hunting to all.[/citation]

Two words. Black Friday. Patience my friend. Word is that there will be several online places with 80GB SSDs for $75.
 
[citation][nom]descendency[/nom]The price drop model has been quite aggressive over the years. This Flash is in super high demand for the manufacturing capabilities today, so obviously that is the problem.So while SSDs might not be reasonably priced for the masses, SLC and MLC NAND Flash based products are reasonably priced for someone.[/citation]

To me, as a gamer, I would want my games on the SSD. Loading of games is where most of the waiting occurs. And since I'm a Steam kind of guy, i'd have to have all of my Steam games on the SSD drive. Looking at my current C: drive, Win XP, I'm already using over 200GB, so I'm waiting for a nice 256GB SSD to come around in a smart price range. They're just too high still to take my money.
And yes, SSD's will come down in price much faster if you all would just act like me and WAIT!!! The technology is getting better and better every day. When I buy my new SSD, I'm not going to have to worry about degradation or any of that mess. They will have conquered it.
 
The best way to utilize these SSDs are as follows. The following approach makes a night-day difference in your PC performance and more than suffices until larger SSDs are available at non-insane prices.

Your O/S, swap file, and whatever games you are Currently Playing go on the SSD. There is enough space on even a 64GB SSD for Win7 64-bit ultimate, a couple misc programs, swap file of several gigabytes, and about 3 full size games.

You do not want loading pauses or load-stuttering in your games (assets are stream-loaded these days as you play, even if you have more than enough ram), so to reap the benefits your games should be installed on the SSD.

 
OCZ had 90 GB for $150 and 120 GB for $200, sometimes after rebate, for their slightly faster Vertex 2.

Has had it for a while. this is supposed to be a new sweet spot? Oh yeah, rebates don't exist in Tom's world.

So add $20 -$30 to the OCZ it's still cheaper than Intel's offerings.

A good story to have would be why it's taking so long for Sata III ssd's to appear. I'm waiting for those to grab up the old sata II's on the cheap.
 
And look at this 180 GB PCI bootable "revo-drive" for $400 -- 20 GB more for $15 less than Intel's offering w/2x the performance!

Sequential Access - Read:
up to 540MB/s

Sequential Access - Write:
up to 480MB/s

Power Consumption (Active):
8 Watts

Power Consumption (Idle):
3 Watts
 
I dunno, i had the first gen intel SSd 80 gig and didn't notice much of a difference between it and my raptor. I sold it off because I'd need 320 gig one or it's not gonna work.
 
sounds good to me. the price is just a tad bit high considering the sandforce-based ssd's but not bad.

[citation][nom]xbeater[/nom]dam you guys!!! I just got myself a nice 40GB SSD, (for a painful $130) and you are already making me regret this. Why is it that since the moment that I got this SSD, SSD's have been all over the news??[/citation]

wow dude i'm sorry. I got my x25-v for $115 back in February. You should probably pay closer to attention to price fluctuations and also you should have known better since black friday hasn't even arrived yet.
 
[citation][nom]bildo123[/nom]You'll be sadly disappointed when all this SSD "boot drive" garbage is a thing of the past this time next year. I'm waiting out until I can get a 256GB SSDfor < $200. Although a stretch, I think this time next year it will be near that price.[/citation]

meanwhile those people who can fit their os and apps on these ssd "boot drives" thoroughly enjoy the major speed increase they bring.

I've been using an x25-m in my desktop for nearly a year now and I'll be getting another year of enjoyment before you finally get that perfect ssd you've been waiting for at which point i just might be ready for an upgrade :)
 
[citation][nom]demonhorde665[/nom]many people here are very uninformed and teh fact they are talkinga bout how these need faster price drops obviously hasn't watched the prices on SSD"s AT ALL,and to any one that has watched the price pluments these whiney people come off as compeltely ignorant. just a little over 3 years ago a 80 to 120 gig SSD woudlavhe costed you around the nieghbor hood of a 1000 dollars . and drives that exceeded 160 gb , were quite commonly costing several thousand dollars. with no offerning above 320 gigs. and today youc an get a 80 gig for about 200 and i've even seen some 200-250 gig SDD;s for around 300-400 bucks now. in comparision lcd Tv's a much more mainstream technology, didn't drop prices any where near that fast. some tiems i think opeople really expect to much out of a amrket even when the market is meeting demand faster than any other market ever could or has done.[/citation]

I think SSDs prices are dropping faster than LCDs because they are being put into Netbooks and Notebooks. Its the same as LED based TVs. I can get a 46" Samsung LED TV for the same price I paid for my Samsung 40" LCD TV 1.5 years ago.

Most of these techs are going into notebooks which makes them drop price faster. Plus Intel/Micron have been working on their process very fast. 25nm came out faster than 34nm and the first SSDs did.
 
[citation][nom]pinkfloydminnesota[/nom]And look at this 180 GB PCI bootable "revo-drive" for $400 -- 20 GB more for $15 less than Intel's offering w/2x the performance!Sequential Access - Read: up to 540MB/sSequential Access - Write: up to 480MB/sPower Consumption (Active): 8 WattsPower Consumption (Idle): 3 Watts[/citation]

The biggest limiting fctor to a SSD compared to these is the bus. A PCIe bus will be faster than SATA. SATA 6 should help to alieviate that but still it does limit the total performance.

I do wonder what Intels 25nm SSDs could push on a PCIe bus. Makes me wonder why they haven't connected SATA dircelty to a PCIe link.
 
[citation][nom]jomofro39[/nom]Is it just me, or is it taking a little too long for these to drop to reasonable prices ($.50/GB-$.75/GB)?[/citation]

Its the recession, why continue to invest heavily on R&D if nobody is willing to pay for the end product. Also, the 10nm wall is not a wall, is more like a hill that gets gradually vertical, and we are at a pretty steep place right now.
 
[citation][nom]techcurious[/nom]So Intel is offering an inferior product at a higher price? The Sandforce 1200 drives are going for about $225 for 120GB (or less than $200 after rebate), and significantly outpace the Intel drive in read, write and input/output performance! The only reason anyone would make an "educated" purchase of these 120GB Intel drives would be because of Sandforce's unproven reliability?[/citation]

What you are quoting is from synthetic benchmarks. From someone who has used both Intel and SandForce based drives (Mushkin Callisto Deluxe Enhanced), I can tell you that the majority of people will NOT be using this drive in a sequential read/write fashion (moving large files) because they will be using it as an OS drive where 4k random reads/writes will come into play. The SF drives are still ahead in this benchmark but not by so much that a user will perceive the difference. Also, I have the Intel 80GB drive and I think the drive is a bit snappier compared to any SF-based drive. No, I cannot measure the 'snappiness' on a scale but you would know what I am talking about if you have used both.
 
So it seems for "normal" home use reliability shouldn't be a huge issue with decently regular backups.

What about usage in high activity, critical servers?
Backups should be frequent enough already and lower power usage will save money but how much more often would you need to replace the SSDs?
 
Everyone who talked about putting a swap file on their SSD: please turn in your drive and geek card on the way out of the clubhouse. Your status has been revoked.

If you're using an SSD you should have the swap disabled or on a traditonal HDD to avoid all the read/writes. Read/write cycles are what wears SSDs out.

Personally, I doubled the RAM I thought I would need and killed off my swap file.
 
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