Intel's X25-M solid-state drive

[Xope_Poquar]

Intel formally detailed its solid-state drive plans at IDF just a couple of weeks ago, revealing not just a single drive, but an entire collection of products that will trickle out in the coming months. The first of these SSDs to hit the market will be the X25-M, which boasts an impressive 250MB/s sustained read rate, a 70MB/s sustained write rate, 80GB of storage capacity in a 2.5" form factor, and support for Native Command Queuing. Read on to see how this drive stacks up against a mix of solid-state and mechanical alternatives through our exhaustive suite of performance, noise level, and power consumption tests.

http://i232.photobucket.com/albums/ee233/Xope_Poquar/Other/open-top.jpg


Lest one market segment go without unwarranted Mountain Dew branding, Intel has an Extreme SSD in the works, too. The X25-E will only be available in 2.5" form factors with capacity points at 32 and 64GB. This SLC-based drive maintains the X25-M's 250MB/s sustained read rate, but boosts writes up to 170MB/s and drops read latency to 75 microseconds.

Source (http://techreport.com/articles.x/15433/1)


I don't know if this has been posted already but after a quick look I didn't see it. Pretty neat, I'm excited.

[WRC]

i think it was posted here a while ago. I still want to find out the official retail price though

[Praz]

About a week late posting this. 2 300GB Raptors in RAID0 for the price of a 64GB Intel SSD. Not a hard decision to make.

[rge]

One site a while back had estimated intels MLC $8 per gigabyte and SLC version $30 a gigabyte. I have since tried to find where I read it, but could not find it again. I was interested in 64GB version....but not if it turns out to be $1900. If the 80 GB MLC had near those write speeds...I would have already bought 2.

[m^2]

About a week late posting this. 2 300GB Raptors in RAID0 for the price of a 64GB Intel SSD. Not a hard decision to make.
Generally - very hard. Depends on how exactly do you want to use it.

[Hornet331]

yeah the X-25M 80g is ~500€ here, quite expensiv.... on the other hand no other ssd can touch that read speeds. :p

[Shintai]

Abit sad to see Techreport bench it on a 3.4Ghz P4, 955X chipset with ICH7R. Using outdated drivers, BIOS, not SP3 on XP etc etc.

Seems its getting popular to cut corners and reuse old data when testing.

Else....SSDs me want :D

[Anemone]

Too much $$ per MB as well as a terminal lifespan. The lifespan may be "managed" and may not be doom and gloom, but it won't last forever.

The cost along with the lifespan is just a bad mix unless you are in a laptop format where you can't get 10k or 15k drives.

[Shintai]

Too much $$ per MB as well as a terminal lifespan. The lifespan may be "managed" and may not be doom and gloom, but it won't last forever.

The cost along with the lifespan is just a bad mix unless you are in a laptop format where you can't get 10k or 15k drives.

Its lifespan gonna outrun any mechnical HD I say. Unless its in a heavy loaded transaction server :p:

With 100GB a day, 5 years atleast as guarantee. That drive would last over 25 years here.

The drive currently cost about 4200DKK here with 25% VAT. So roughly 3200DKK or 620$ without.

Its the SSD or 2 Velociraptors basicly.

[BulldogPO]

I have few results from my tests.

Attached to HPT RAID controller:
http://mato78.com/images/stories/artikkelit/Intel_X25-M/IntelRR3520/hdtach.png

And attached to Intel ICH10:
http://mato78.com/images/stories/artikkelit/Intel_X25-M/IntelICH10R/hdtach.png

[Praz]

I have few results from my tests.
Can you run the same using CrystalDiskMark?

http://crystalmark.info/software/CrystalDiskMark/index-e.html

[BulldogPO]

Not anymore, I have sent to next review dude that drive :(

But I have few tests in my pocket still, like same system with WinXP and 80GB HDD (WD800AAJS) and then cloned that drive to Intel SSD and i did run PCMark05 from both of those drives.

[SturmoV]

but it won't last forever.


Gosh, that's a shame! We've got all these computer components marked with "MTBF: >∞" and Intel comes out with a hard drive that has a finite lifespan. What the hell were they thinking?! :rolleyes:

[shiznit93]

Wow so ICH10 is bottlenecking that drive...

[Levish]

kinda funny that intel's own chipset is bottlenecking their own drives, hopefully ICH11 will be better, until then a quality controller card in addition to any high end drive or you are leaving alot of potential on the table.

[Shintai]

kinda funny that intel's own chipset is bottlenecking their own drives, hopefully ICH11 will be better, until then a quality controller card in addition to any high end drive or you are leaving alot of potential on the table.

We need SATA6 :D

[flopper]

finnaly some bottleneck that isnt the drives ;)

[Pillo-kun]

I really don't understand how a ssd that dont have any mooving parts can be short lived compared to a hdd. what, do the current automatically rize(oc) if the speed of the ssd gets to high?

[largon]

Too much $$ per MBAgreed.
as well as a terminal lifespan. The lifespan may be "managed" and may not be doom and gloom, but it won't last forever.http://largon.wippiespace.com/blankstare.gif
Rest assured, any HDD will die sooner than an SSD degrades enough for one to be able to say "It is done for".

[Macadamia]

I dunno. As a general power user (not speaking from a "hardcore" "enthusiast" "bling" perspective) I'd take the Seagate 1.5TB. That's... 20 times the pr0n you can store. :p:


Well, if SLC 128GBs costed the same as the current 64GB MLC, I'd hit it! (someday!)

[STaRGaZeR]

Forget about Seagate, I'll wait for Samsung's. Quieter, cheaper, cooler, maybe faster. Can't wait.

[rge]

prices for intels...
$699 for intel 80GB MLC X25M with 250mb/s read, 70mb/s write
$835 for intel 32GB (?$1700 for 64GB) SLC X25E with 250mb/s read, 170mb/s write
http://www.govconnection.com/IPA/Shop/Product/Search.htm?CatId=204123&id=+2147483079&Sort=Most+Popular&DefSort=Y&Term=

When i can buy >60GB SSD (MLC or SLC) with 250read/170 write for $700...Im there, wonder how long I will be waiting...

[bmg]

Looks like they're finally becoming available. Still too pricey though. http://www.buy.com/prod/x25m80gb-80gb-2-5-form-factor/q/loc/101/209180500.html

[Boogerlad]

would cooling of the chips help at all?

[m^2]

Help what?

[nn_step]

would cooling of the chips help at all?

only if you can figure out how to overclock Flash Memory
Otherwise it would do nothing to extend the life.
[if you wish to extend an SSD's life just reduce the number of disc writes]

[jcool]

If only there wasn't the issue with MLCs corrupting data, I could well live with 140MB/s write in Raid 0.
That SLC pricing is more than ridiculous.

[Rob94hawk]

I have few results from my tests.


Un-freakin-real!!

HDD's are going the way of AGP. I've read most of the reviews on this drive and I've never been so excited about new hardware before. I predict in less than 3 years these will be the norm. Prices will go down, storage capacity will go up, and best of all we'll be closer to instantaneous bootup and game loading!

I read on Anandtech that it helped boost game framerates some, by about 5 fps. I can see why now.

[tekjunkie]

I can already do this

http://img519.imageshack.us/img519/9486/hdtachcy8.jpg

So, no thanks

[mikeyakame]

technology is still too immature at this stage I believe. The new Seagate Cheetah 15K.6 SAS drives are pretty damn impressive sporting near sequential read / write speeds from outer edge to inner edge. Peak is around 175-185mb/sec with minimum falling a little over 105mb/sec at worst. They are selling for about $280usd at current and are probably the closest comparable units to the current breed of SSD's. They also have equivalent MTBF ratings to the SLC drives of around 1.3-1.5 million hours of work. They are about the only drive unit existing right now that have comparable real world sequential and random data transfers. Access latency is only a little slower than the fastest SAS HDD on the market right now, its about 0.2-0.4ms slower than the Seagate Savvio 15K 2.5" 73gb SAS drive, with an average latency of around 5.8ms. They also don't fail miserably when handling small block sizes, important for those dealing with lots of small source files or the likes.

[T_Flight]

I'm definitely buying...

Just as soon as these come down to 1 dollar per GB, they have at least 150GB of storage space, and they can exceed a greater than 1 million hour MTBF.

Oh, wait a minute. I have a Velociraptor that already does that for that price. What was I thinking?

[iddqd]

Agreed. http://largon.wippiespace.com/blankstare.gif
Rest assured, any HDD will die sooner than an SSD degrades enough for one to be able to say "It is done for".

It's not going to completely die either. You'll just get bad sectors in spots you used more frequently. So you'll mark them as bad and move on. You lose the data, but the drive is still useable.

[Shintai]

It's not going to completely die either. You'll just get bad sectors in spots you used more frequently. So you'll mark them as bad and move on. You lose the data, but the drive is still useable.

On an SSD you can still read the "bad blocks". No dataloss.

[Sly Fox]

On an SSD you can still read the "bad blocks". No dataloss.

So the bad blocks just can't be modified?

[Shintai]

So the bad blocks just can't be modified?

There is extra space on the drive to remap any "bad blocks". Or rather non writeable blocks.

[RealTelstar]

prices for intels...
$699 for intel 80GB MLC X25M with 250mb/s read, 70mb/s write
$835 for intel 32GB (?$1700 for 64GB) SLC X25E with 250mb/s read, 170mb/s write
http://www.govconnection.com/IPA/Shop/Product/Search.htm?CatId=204123&id=+2147483079&Sort=Most+Popular&DefSort=Y&Term=


Yeah, too high prices. But they need real competition to get down.

[Rob94hawk]

I can already do this

So, no thanks

Yeah, too bad you have to use raid to get those results compared to this 1 SDD.:rofl:

And people here are comparing this drive to SCSI drives?

People are going on the defensive the same way people went on the defensive when AGP was being phased out. Face it, this is it. Finally the last bottleneck of the pc is being phased out and Intel stepped up to the plate to do it.

[Praz]

Yeah, too bad you have to use raid to get those results compared to this 1 SDD.:rofl:
Show me an Intel single drive that can produce those results and I'll buy it. The Intel SSD does raise the performance bar but for desktop use there is still better and more cost effective solutions. And Intel's Adaptive Memory Controller Technology still needs to be proven in real world use. Needing to use a secure erase utility when going from one benchmark to the next leaves some questions as to day to day performance.

[iddqd]

On an SSD you can still read the "bad blocks". No dataloss.

Oh, good point. I guess you don't lose your data either then :shrug:.

With a hard drive, it usually completely dies rather than develop bad sectors, and with this, not only can you continue using your SSD, but you don't even suffer data loss.

[Boogerlad]

so if a ssd is "dead" or "non-writable", you can still connect it to a computer, read off of it, and save the data?

[Monkeywoman]

yah SSD's are fast and all but isn't vista not optimized for them? i heard a while back that due to the way vista was made SSD's are yet showing their full potential.

[Mad1723]

so if a ssd is "dead" or "non-writable", you can still connect it to a computer, read off of it, and save the data?

Yes you can. If a cell becomes unwritable, the chip is indicated faulty to the controller and it will write the info at another place. In best case, you will never notice it unless you check your capacity and that it suddenly lowered. HDD have the problem that when a block fails, everything fails. Hence the usefulness of the SSD in servers, to avoid downtimes due to HDD failing.

Only problem is still the price per gb ratio :shrug:

[Shintai]

yah SSD's are fast and all but isn't vista not optimized for them? i heard a while back that due to the way vista was made SSD's are yet showing their full potential.

No, thats basicly just an excuse for those with the jmicron controller in the SSDs ;)

[bmg]

No, thats basicly just an excuse for those with the jmicron controller in the SSDs ;)

QFT

[m^2]

No, thats basicly just an excuse for those with the jmicron controller in the SSDs ;)

Nah, remember Buckeye's setup? His MTRONs scored less on Vista too.
But blaming Vista for faulty drives...:down:

[Afterburner]

When do you guys suppose these will be made in enough quantity to be sold in the $595 region

[WRC]

most likely towards the end of the year, I am really more excited about the micron SSD's that should come out anytime now. They seem to outperform the intel x-25M's for probably a much cheaper price

[Afterburner]

Can't wait to see what Micron has to offer.... :D

[RealTelstar]

I think there will be price reductions no sooner than january-february.

[gallardo]

People keep talking about SSD's life time. If they can last more than 2 years it's too much already. In 2 years ANY drive released now will be so old and obsolete it won't be worth 10% of what it is now.

That's why I'm still holding out. It would have to reach 1$/GB before I buy a SSD... even though I can already feel the need for one as my computer has moments when it stops to read from the HDD even though I have the swap file set to 0MB.

[Rammsteiner]

I think there will be price reductions no sooner than january-february.
I hope at least we see some nice price reductions. As soon as I saw Intel's SSD review I checked pricewatch, only to find out the 500+ Euro price. It's a very nice SSD, but you mostly pay a premium because it's pretty new and actually better than most MLC's around right now.

In a few years you might see 1TB SSD's being even faster for only 100 Euro prolly. It always goes like that, just this time Ill not rush for the new technology and just wait a bit longer:p:

[XS Janus]

And where are the "Enterprise" Intel SSD's?
I would love to see those tested. Price: Iwould NOT like to know... :D