Intel 510 Series 120GB SSD Review

1. Introduction2. Intel 510 Series 120GB SSD3. Testing Methodology4. CrystalDiskMark5. HDTach 3.0.4.06. ATTO Disk Benchmark7. PCMark Vantage8. AS SSD9. IOMeter10. Real World Testing11. Closing Thoughts12. View All Pages

There have been many people waiting on the new Intel 510 series solid state drives and we can't help but feel slightly disappointed with the overall package.

The 120GB unit is a sequential read powerhouse, capable of handling well in excess of 400 MB/s with a 6Gbps controller. In our testing it performed better than the competing products when used as a boot drive, or when loading games and applications. Unfortunately by using the Marvell controller, the write performance is a little lacking, and much slower than current class leading Sandforce drives. This is only the tip of the iceberg however, as there are new SF-2000 drives about to hit the market, which promise superior all round performance.

There is no doubting that this drive will work wonders under the right conditions, but it is entirely focused on sequential read bandwidth and lacks in other areas, such as random read and write performance. To be fair, we shouldn't really expect much more, after all, it is using 34nm NAND technology and a controller tuned for sequential read throughput.

If you need a solid state drive specifically for moving large files then this is a great choice, but it does struggle with processing small files, especially when compared directly to Sandforce based products.

Pros:

• SATA 6Gbps capability
• sequential read performance is class leading, for the time being anyway
• TRIM support

Cons:

• random performance is poor
• pricing could be better
• write performance is lower than the leading drives
• its released just as the next generation technology is due to hit.

KitGuru says: A solid release from Intel, but we had hoped for a little more.

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