New Intel 510 series vs X25/18-M series SSD's

[blackhawk1928]

Hi,
I just recently learned about the new Intel Sata 3 (6Gbps) based 510 series SSD's shipping in (According to Newegg) a 120GB and 250GB model. I wanted to compare the new 510 SSD series against the older X-18/25M series, specifically against the X25-M SSD's. Knowing that the largest drives of the two series are faster then the slower ones, for this comparison lets use the:

Intel X25-M 160GB
vs
Intel 510 250GB

Using Intel's specifications and results, straight from thier website via PDF's, information regarding the Access Times, Read Speed, Write Speed, and Random 4K, IOPS.

http://download.intel.com/design/flash/nand/Intel_SSD_510_Series_Product_Specification.pdf
http://download.intel.com/design/flash/nand/mainstream/Specification322296.pdf

^These are my sources.

Now lets start with Sustained Read/Writes

510 SSD=500MB/s Read; 315MB/s Write
X25 SSD=250MB/s Read; 100MB/s Write

-So here is a huge improvement, reads are improved by a solid 200% and writes are improved by over 300% over the older SSD line up. FAST!

However, the reason I made this thread was mainly to discuss this: The Access Times/Latency and Random Reads/Writes.

510 SSD= 65µ Read; 80µ Write
X25 SSD= 65µ Read; 85µ Write

-So the latency is pretty much the same...for both reads and writes.


And the last thing is IOPS:

510 SSD=
(Iometer Queue Depth 32)
— Random 4 KB Reads: Up to 20,000 IOPS
— Random 4 KB Writes: Up to 8,000 IOPS

X25 SSD=
-It says up to 35k IOPS (For 4K reads)
-It says up to 8,600 OPS for writes.

====================================
So according to neweggs prices...you are paying $2.46 per GB for the 510 SSD and $2.50 per GB for the X25-M...which once again is practically the same.
So my final question was, what improvement does the new SSD's bring...the only thing I see is faster reads and SATA III compatibilty which aren't really performance improvements. More then likley, these drives will be used for the OS where the random reads and access times matter, not really sequential reads. So am I missing something?...

 

[JohnnyLucky]

You must have missed the technical reviews that Tom's Hardware, AnandTech, and Storage Review published a few days ago. The Intel 510 performance and price did not meet the expectations of gamers and enthusiasts. I visited quite a few forums this past week. Just about all of the user comments about the 510 were negative.

Here are the links to the reviews:

http://www.tomshardware.com/reviews/ssd-510-solid-state-6gbps,2881.html

http://www.anandtech.com/show/4202/the-intel-ssd-510-review

http://www.storagereview.com/intel_ssd_510_review_250gb

I do not understand why Intel did what they did. On the brighter side, Intel will be releasing a new series of ssd's next month that should come very close to their "Postville Refresh" shown on their roadmap chart. It will be SATA III (6 Gb/s) capable and will use 25nm NAND. What's not clear is what sort of Controller it will have. It should be an Intel controller but I stumbled into a couple of articles suggesting it might be a SandForce controller. Right now it is just an unsubstatiated rumor.

In the meantime, the OCZ Vertex 3 appears to be ruling the roost despite the fact that the Vertex 3 is not yet available. I just found out vendors are expecting shipments of the Vertex 3 sometime around the 21st of March.

 

[blackhawk1928]

Yeah, I simply don't understand why they published new SSD's that had little to no performance boost over the old ones according to thier specifications, use the same 34nm tech, and cost the same in ratio as the old ones...what is the point?...! I was expecting thier new lineup to be something fast.

 

[RetiredChief]

Intel 510 controller = Marvell
From anand:
Quote - The “G3” we’ve all been waiting for will still come. That’ll be Intel’s first 25nm SSD and it should carry specs similar to what we already published. However the focus of the drive will be the mainstream. To take care of the high end Intel created a new drive: the Intel SSD 510 (codename Elmcrest) and it uses a Marvell 9174 6Gbps controller.

 

[JohnnyLucky]

According to the Tom's Hardware review the 510 excels at one thing - handling extremely large files - sequential read and write. It showed up in the CrystalDiskMark benchmarks. The OCZ trails slightly behind the 510. My question is who uses those extremely large files?

The Tom's Hardware review suggests it might help gamers and video editors.

 

[RetiredChief]

Dot VOMs are typically 1 Gig files and Blu-ray files can have a single file ranging between 14 -> 40 gigs, BUT who would want to put thoes files on a "small" boot SSD (ie 240 gig and smaller). Working with large CAD/CAM or large databases would be benifited by the High Seq read/writes.

If really want performace for working with these type file (except blu-ray), might consider a ramdrive.
Expensive (approx $100 for an 8 Gig ramdrive) and increases shutdown/boot times BUT Check my Seq's
Read = 4,714 MB/s
writes = 4,967 MB//s
Random 4K read/writes = 440 MB/s and 353 MB/s
Kind of makes an SSD seem slowwww

 

[blackhawk1928]

^Yeah I once downloaded a trail of a software that did ram drives and i measured my ramdisk via HDtune and it was 5k + and access times it said were like 0...probably to low for the application to measure.

 

[JohnnyLucky]

Intel is set to release their new 320 series Generation 3 (G3), SATA III (6 Gb/s), 25nm NAND ssd's next month:

http://vr-zone.com/articles/intel-solid-state-drive-320-series-to-launch-mid-april/11407.html

No indication which controller.

 

[sminlal]

To take care of the high end Intel created a new drive: the Intel SSD 510 (codename Elmcrest) and it uses a Marvell 9174 6Gbps controller.

I wonder if the difference here is that the 510 has better write endurance than the new 25nm drives? That's something that would be very important in a corporate environment, and it would make sense given the larger cells based on 34nm processes.

 

[JohnnyLucky]

Interesting review:

Intel 510 Series 250GB SSDs Reviewed in RAID 0

Article URL: http://www.legitreviews.com/article/1563/1/

Unfortunately Legit Reviews was not able to compare with other ssd's in Raid array.