The Intel SSD 330 Review (60GB, 120GB, 180GB)
by Anand Lal Shimpi on August 1, 2012 12:01 AM ESTFinal Words
Of the available SandForce drives, I've felt most comfortable recommending Intel's own. The pass through Intel's validation labs provides that extra peace of mind that hopefully translates into a better overall experience. In the past Intel has been a reliable option in the market but not necessarily the most affordable. The 330 attempts to correct the latter. While other drives are cheaper, the 330 does give you a unique combination of an Intel validated drive at a competitive price point.
The performance delta between the 330 and the 520 is narrow enough that I don't see a reason to recommend the 520 unless you need a higher capacity drive. The loss of endurance is likely something no typical end user would ever notice. Perhaps the lower p/e cycle is enough to keep the 330 out of write heavy enterprise deployments, but otherwise it's a non-issue.
The biggest problem with Intel's SSD 330 really stems from the limitations of its SandForce controller. Performance with incompressible (or software encrypted) data is hardly competitive. As an unencrypted OS/application drive the 330 is great, but if you're planning on using software encryption or will be primarily storing photos, videos and music you'll want to opt for a drive based on a different controller technology.
In the end it's good to see Intel playing aggressively on price. The 330 is likely one of the best SandForce drives on the market, and not having to pay a premium for it is pretty awesome.
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antef - Wednesday, August 1, 2012 - link
And, holy crap, Anand's chart is wrong, the m4 128 GB is now only $106 at Amazon. That's a steal!nextel2010 - Tuesday, October 2, 2012 - link
At this moment, Amazon has the Samsung 830 128GB at $89.99!! If I didn't already have a 128GB and 256GB already, I'm all over that one....owned66 - Wednesday, August 1, 2012 - link
i have 2 of these in raid 0HD tune bench it stays at 1000 MB/s then goes up and down then stays at 700 MB/s then goes back to 1000
im using a x77 motherboard
and also using the 6Gb/s port (not the marvell one)
Movieman420 - Wednesday, August 1, 2012 - link
I've been following the SSD endurance thread at XS for some time. There's one 64gb M4 that hit 0 MWI at 172TB of writes and is still chugging along at 1,.250+ TBs (that's 1.25 PB!!). Ofc not every drive is the same. There is a chart of the currently running endurance tests on the last page or 2 usually. To sum it up...nand endurance is not an issue as Anand stated.They have a Samsung 830 that just hit 3PBs!....it's mwi said the nand was worn out at 828TB writes...lmao
MrSpadge - Wednesday, August 1, 2012 - link
It's disappointing to see this drive switch to 9.5 mm when actually any SSD could be 7 mm standard. And Intel were the first to offer this (although with that stupid voided warrenty).MarsMSJ - Wednesday, August 1, 2012 - link
Anand should of touched on OSX and Intel's new drives even at the risk of sounding like a broken record. There some of us praying for the day Intel comes out with a new drive that works on OSX.Unfortunately, Samsung appears to be your best bet on OSX. I used a 320 series 160 GB drive and it just behaved poorly when I was using 150 GB of it. Not sure if it had anything to do with Repair Disk. Every other day OSX would recommend I run it because it believed my drive was corrupt. Sometimes it would even boot me right into Disk Utility. I ran Lion and Windows 7 in VMware fusion.
Strangely enough, the 320 behaved like these 330s in their "run into a corner" scenario.
kaelynthedove78 - Wednesday, August 1, 2012 - link
I noticed that you tested with a highly non-standard configuration, with EIST disabled.Has the Sandforce bug that causes the performance to plummet if EIST is enabled been fixed?
Nobody in their right mind would run a home desktop/laptop with EIST disabled..
jwcalla - Wednesday, August 1, 2012 - link
Hmmm... this is interesting. Where can I find more info about this? I haven't noticed such behavior yet but maybe I haven't been looking hard enough.Kristian Vättö - Thursday, August 2, 2012 - link
It's been fixed from what I know, or at least Anand told me to just leave those enabled (my setup is running normal settings as you can see in some of our recent SSD reviews). Anand has probably just left those settings to be what they were before.mattlach - Wednesday, August 1, 2012 - link
I presume the Vertex 4 is not in the comparison table due to its poor read speed when reviewed by Anandtech?Anandtech still needs to revisit the Vertex 4. The two firmware releases since launch have completely transformed the drive, and I wouldn't be surprised to see it near the top.