Intel X25-M 160gb SSD Drive (34nm) Review @ DH

Zardon · Aug 14, 2009, 08:28 AM

Read The Review Here
________________
The drive we are looking at today is the long awaited Intel replacement which is built on the 34 nanometer manufacturing process - this has the long term benefit of helping to reduce the costs to manufacture therefore meaning less cost to the consumer - well thats the theory anyway.

Mac Daddy · Aug 14, 2009, 12:00 PM

Nicely written review and another solid SSD release by Intel. They just keep improving these and I am more and more tempted to pick one up irregardless of the cost.

Alex · Aug 14, 2009, 12:23 PM

On the basis of this review im going to order one, I was always a little unsure that 80gb would do me, even for a boot drive.

160gb however? very nice. Good value drive considering the class leading read performance.

brutusmaximus · Aug 14, 2009, 12:26 PM

Its interesting to see how much more important the read performance is when compared to write performance. I mean if you look at this drive side by side with say the latest OCZ which has double the write performance, the real world performance gains are very little.

I guess in specific instances such as shown in the review on one of the final testing pages, there are cases when the Intel will be slightly slower when compared with the controller in the Crucial.

Overall however, im very tempted now as the size as basically doubled for the same price.

The fact it performs slightly better is the icing (also loved the little OSX test, not often you see that on leading tech sites). Count me in !

clanman · Aug 14, 2009, 12:30 PM

Quote:

Originally Posted by Alex

On the basis of this review im going to order one, I was always a little unsure that 80gb would do me, even for a boot drive.

160gb however? very nice. Good value drive considering the class leading read performance.

Yeah 160GB is a lovely size for an OS disk. you can comfortably install your OS, your apps like office etc and also install STEAM and a bunch of your favourite games. Unless you have high demands they are at the size now if your a general user and gamer then you could get away with this on its own for a while, then opt for a cheap storage drive later for say 50-60.

I am saving up for this, the read performance is amazing.

catflaps · Aug 14, 2009, 02:15 PM

awesome review guys. love the real world testing - hate seeing all those stupid figures in reviews, I want to know what it will do for me.

The boot times are the seller for me. under 10 seconds for OSX! I think ill save for this and pick one up for my Alienware laptop.

ericjohnston · Aug 14, 2009, 02:16 PM

Just ordered one from Newegg. thanks guys! ill let you know how mine goes.

flamingturds · Aug 14, 2009, 02:18 PM

shame they didn't crank up the write speeds in line with the other big players lately, but those sustained read speeds are the kicker.

Boot drive here I come.

macbiter · Aug 14, 2009, 02:21 PM

One thing Intel have got going for them here, is the manufacturing process. the whole side of the PCB is free from any population of flash so when it goes to 320gb they simply populate it. This is such an easy system for them and keeps their costs down.

I know its still a considerable amount of money but its 30 gb more than most other makers for around the same money and its pounding out the read speeds. seeing 240-260 sustained is very impressive. Latency is amazing too.

I already have the 80gb Drive and its been reliable and never seems to suffer from the same degradation as the other makers ive played with. I think this will be on my shortlist, next paycheck anyway.

humonous · Aug 14, 2009, 02:24 PM

Killer performance.

Its still a lot of money, well for me anyway. I think if you wanted the performance before however you put raptor's in Raid 0. maybe if you look at it from that angle its more justifiable.

I would love one, but my wife would kill me.

catflaps · Aug 14, 2009, 10:41 PM

Zardon could you fire the SSD into windows 7 and tell me the benchmark figure? Curious to see if it breaks the 7.0 mark.

Zardon · Aug 14, 2009, 10:43 PM

Sure - im actually testing something else atm so Windows 7 is running. Its not in the same system which handled the review, but the figures should be the same. decent score, although I wouldnt put too much faith in Windows 7's built in app for accurate benchmarking figures

Bolletje · Aug 15, 2009, 12:22 AM

Aha, nice one

But how do you think about 2 cheap OCZ drives (those ones from the arcticle some while ago) in RAID 0?

Or is RAID + SSD a bad choice?

Zardon · Aug 15, 2009, 12:29 AM

What cheap OCZ drives - I am not aware of any we reviewed recently?

SSD and Raid 0 works very well indeed. Stuart (veridian3) reviewed a Raid 0 Corsair setup recently. the figures were quite impressive!

http://www.hardwareheaven.com/reviews....d=821&pageid=7

Bolletje · Aug 15, 2009, 12:53 AM

Oo, hehe. I meant these ones : http://www.hardwareheaven.com/news/188...eries-ssd.html

macbiter · Aug 15, 2009, 12:57 AM

Don't see the solid series in the UK anywhere yet. OCZ normally do a quality SSD mind you, i would say two in raid would make a nice boot drive.

Kingston do a value series too Kingston SSDNow V Series 128GB 2.5" SATA-II Solid State Notebook Kit (SNV125-S2BN/128GB)

Two of those would only be 40 quid more than the Intel drive and would probably perform almost as good in reads and higher in writes. (also you would get almost double the storage).

adonn78 · Aug 15, 2009, 10:32 AM

My favorite aspect of the review was the boot time seconded by the game level load. Real world benchmarks on real machiens means everything to me. i was curious as to how 2 of these drives in RAID 0 would perform. How much if any of a performance gain would I get with 2 SSD's? VS 1?

Zardon · Aug 15, 2009, 10:37 AM

Quote:

Originally Posted by adonn78

My favorite aspect of the review was the boot time seconded by the game level load. Real world benchmarks on real machiens means everything to me. i was curious as to how 2 of these drives in RAID 0 would perform. How much if any of a performance gain would I get with 2 SSD's? VS 1?

Well i unfortunately dont have two of these to run in raid 0, but we did run two of the corsair drives in raid before and we saw very impressive gains. http://www.hardwareheaven.com/reviews....d=821&pageid=7

Zardon · Aug 16, 2009, 01:32 AM

To anyone buying or who has bought this, a new firmware was released for it.

DJ BIG T · Aug 16, 2009, 02:14 AM

likes it...

DJ BIG T · Aug 16, 2009, 02:17 AM

is

for one of them...ty Z for putting your time into these reviews...this is the only site i read reviews on...

lepel · Aug 16, 2009, 11:51 AM

Impressive review. I'm amazed by this product's performance compared to a WD 10.000 rpm drive. Though prices have dropped significantly since last year, SSDs are still expensive in my opinion.

Mac OSX boot times are incredible too on this drive. :O

WMCG · Aug 20, 2009, 11:50 PM

I have a question on your Adobe AME benchmark. I would like to compare your benchmarking to my own benchmarking of AME. From your data it is a 1920 x1080 AVI file and you are encoding to H.264, but there are quite a few details not yet given First question is could I download it some place? If not could I get more information in order to duplicate it? I have a video editing rig with RAID that reads at an average transfer rate of about 600 MB/s.

Aug 14, 2009, 08:28 AM	#1
Zardon DriverHeaven Founder Join Date: May 2002 Posts: 32,481 Rep Power: 162	Intel X25-M 160gb SSD Drive (34nm) Review @ DH Read The Review Here ________________ The drive we are looking at today is the long awaited Intel replacement which is built on the 34 nanometer manufacturing process - this has the long term benefit of helping to reduce the costs to manufacture therefore meaning less cost to the consumer - well thats the theory anyway.

Aug 14, 2009, 12:00 PM	#2
Mac Daddy DriverHeaven Extreme Member Join Date: Jul 2002 Location: Ontario, Canada Posts: 7,950 Rep Power: 65 System Specs	Re: Intel X25-M 160gb SSD Drive (34nm) Review @ DH Nicely written review and another solid SSD release by Intel. They just keep improving these and I am more and more tempted to pick one up irregardless of the cost. __________________ "My mom said the only reason men are alive is for lawn care and vehicle maintenance." - Tim Allen

Aug 14, 2009, 12:23 PM	#3
Alex Driverheaven Lover Join Date: Aug 2005 Posts: 260 Rep Power: 31	Re: Intel X25-M 160gb SSD Drive (34nm) Review @ DH On the basis of this review im going to order one, I was always a little unsure that 80gb would do me, even for a boot drive. 160gb however? very nice. Good value drive considering the class leading read performance.

Aug 14, 2009, 12:26 PM	#4
brutusmaximus DriverHeaven Senior Member Join Date: Apr 2005 Posts: 520 Rep Power: 62	Re: Intel X25-M 160gb SSD Drive (34nm) Review @ DH Its interesting to see how much more important the read performance is when compared to write performance. I mean if you look at this drive side by side with say the latest OCZ which has double the write performance, the real world performance gains are very little. I guess in specific instances such as shown in the review on one of the final testing pages, there are cases when the Intel will be slightly slower when compared with the controller in the Crucial. Overall however, im very tempted now as the size as basically doubled for the same price. The fact it performs slightly better is the icing (also loved the little OSX test, not often you see that on leading tech sites). Count me in ! __________________

Aug 14, 2009, 02:15 PM	#6
catflaps DriverHeaven Newbie Join Date: Dec 2008 Posts: 10 Rep Power: 0	Re: Intel X25-M 160gb SSD Drive (34nm) Review @ DH awesome review guys. love the real world testing - hate seeing all those stupid figures in reviews, I want to know what it will do for me. The boot times are the seller for me. under 10 seconds for OSX! I think ill save for this and pick one up for my Alienware laptop.

Aug 14, 2009, 02:16 PM	#7
ericjohnston DriverHeaven Newbie Join Date: Dec 2008 Posts: 2 Rep Power: 0	Re: Intel X25-M 160gb SSD Drive (34nm) Review @ DH Just ordered one from Newegg. thanks guys! ill let you know how mine goes.

Aug 14, 2009, 02:18 PM	#8
flamingturds DriverHeaven Newbie Join Date: Dec 2008 Posts: 4 Rep Power: 0	Re: Intel X25-M 160gb SSD Drive (34nm) Review @ DH shame they didn't crank up the write speeds in line with the other big players lately, but those sustained read speeds are the kicker. Boot drive here I come.

Aug 14, 2009, 02:21 PM	#9
macbiter DriverHeaven Junior Member Join Date: Jul 2004 Posts: 81 Rep Power: 36	Re: Intel X25-M 160gb SSD Drive (34nm) Review @ DH One thing Intel have got going for them here, is the manufacturing process. the whole side of the PCB is free from any population of flash so when it goes to 320gb they simply populate it. This is such an easy system for them and keeps their costs down. I know its still a considerable amount of money but its 30 gb more than most other makers for around the same money and its pounding out the read speeds. seeing 240-260 sustained is very impressive. Latency is amazing too. I already have the 80gb Drive and its been reliable and never seems to suffer from the same degradation as the other makers ive played with. I think this will be on my shortlist, next paycheck anyway.

Aug 14, 2009, 02:24 PM	#10
humonous DriverHeaven Lover Join Date: Jun 2005 Posts: 164 Rep Power: 31	Re: Intel X25-M 160gb SSD Drive (34nm) Review @ DH Killer performance. Its still a lot of money, well for me anyway. I think if you wanted the performance before however you put raptor's in Raid 0. maybe if you look at it from that angle its more justifiable. I would love one, but my wife would kill me.

Aug 14, 2009, 10:41 PM	#11
catflaps DriverHeaven Newbie Join Date: Dec 2008 Posts: 10 Rep Power: 0	Re: Intel X25-M 160gb SSD Drive (34nm) Review @ DH Zardon could you fire the SSD into windows 7 and tell me the benchmark figure? Curious to see if it breaks the 7.0 mark.

Aug 14, 2009, 10:43 PM	#12
Zardon DriverHeaven Founder Join Date: May 2002 Posts: 32,481 Rep Power: 162	Re: Intel X25-M 160gb SSD Drive (34nm) Review @ DH Sure - im actually testing something else atm so Windows 7 is running. Its not in the same system which handled the review, but the figures should be the same. decent score, although I wouldnt put too much faith in Windows 7's built in app for accurate benchmarking figures

Aug 15, 2009, 12:22 AM	#13
Bolletje Wannabe jedi master... Join Date: Sep 2008 Location: The Netherlands Posts: 1,166 Rep Power: 61 System Specs	Re: Intel X25-M 160gb SSD Drive (34nm) Review @ DH Aha, nice one But how do you think about 2 cheap OCZ drives (those ones from the arcticle some while ago) in RAID 0? Or is RAID + SSD a bad choice? __________________

Aug 15, 2009, 12:29 AM	#14
Zardon DriverHeaven Founder Join Date: May 2002 Posts: 32,481 Rep Power: 162	Re: Intel X25-M 160gb SSD Drive (34nm) Review @ DH What cheap OCZ drives - I am not aware of any we reviewed recently? SSD and Raid 0 works very well indeed. Stuart (veridian3) reviewed a Raid 0 Corsair setup recently. the figures were quite impressive! http://www.hardwareheaven.com/reviews....d=821&pageid=7

Aug 15, 2009, 12:53 AM	#15
Bolletje Wannabe jedi master... Join Date: Sep 2008 Location: The Netherlands Posts: 1,166 Rep Power: 61 System Specs	Re: Intel X25-M 160gb SSD Drive (34nm) Review @ DH Oo, hehe. I meant these ones : http://www.hardwareheaven.com/news/188...eries-ssd.html __________________

Aug 15, 2009, 12:57 AM	#16
macbiter DriverHeaven Junior Member Join Date: Jul 2004 Posts: 81 Rep Power: 36	Re: Intel X25-M 160gb SSD Drive (34nm) Review @ DH Don't see the solid series in the UK anywhere yet. OCZ normally do a quality SSD mind you, i would say two in raid would make a nice boot drive. Kingston do a value series too Kingston SSDNow V Series 128GB 2.5" SATA-II Solid State Notebook Kit (SNV125-S2BN/128GB) Two of those would only be 40 quid more than the Intel drive and would probably perform almost as good in reads and higher in writes. (also you would get almost double the storage).

Aug 15, 2009, 10:32 AM	#17
adonn78 DriverHeaven Newbie Join Date: Apr 2009 Location: New City, NY Posts: 7 Rep Power: 0 System Specs	Re: Intel X25-M 160gb SSD Drive (34nm) Review @ DH My favorite aspect of the review was the boot time seconded by the game level load. Real world benchmarks on real machiens means everything to me. i was curious as to how 2 of these drives in RAID 0 would perform. How much if any of a performance gain would I get with 2 SSD's? VS 1?

Aug 16, 2009, 01:32 AM	#19
Zardon DriverHeaven Founder Join Date: May 2002 Posts: 32,481 Rep Power: 162	Re: Intel X25-M 160gb SSD Drive (34nm) Review @ DH To anyone buying or who has bought this, a new firmware was released for it.

Aug 16, 2009, 02:14 AM	#20
DJ BIG T DH FaN BoY Join Date: Jan 2008 Location: ORLANDO,FL Posts: 901 Rep Power: 55 System Specs	Re: Intel X25-M 160gb SSD Drive (34nm) Review @ DH likes it... __________________

Aug 16, 2009, 02:17 AM	#21
DJ BIG T DH FaN BoY Join Date: Jan 2008 Location: ORLANDO,FL Posts: 901 Rep Power: 55 System Specs	Re: Intel X25-M 160gb SSD Drive (34nm) Review @ DH is for one of them...ty Z for putting your time into these reviews...this is the only site i read reviews on... __________________

Aug 16, 2009, 11:51 AM	#22
lepel HardwareHeaven Senior Member Join Date: Nov 2008 Location: Belgium Posts: 548 Rep Power: 27 System Specs	Re: Intel X25-M 160gb SSD Drive (34nm) Review @ DH Impressive review. I'm amazed by this product's performance compared to a WD 10.000 rpm drive. Though prices have dropped significantly since last year, SSDs are still expensive in my opinion. Mac OSX boot times are incredible too on this drive. :O

Aug 20, 2009, 11:50 PM	#23
WMCG DriverHeaven Newbie Join Date: Aug 2009 Posts: 1 Rep Power: 0	Re: Intel X25-M 160gb SSD Drive (34nm) Review @ DH I have a question on your Adobe AME benchmark. I would like to compare your benchmarking to my own benchmarking of AME. From your data it is a 1920 x1080 AVI file and you are encoding to H.264, but there are quite a few details not yet given First question is could I download it some place? If not could I get more information in order to duplicate it? I have a video editing rig with RAID that reads at an average transfer rate of about 600 MB/s.