Intel SSD 525 Review (240GB)
by Anand Lal Shimpi on January 30, 2013 1:42 AM ESTFinal Words
Intel's SSD 525, at least in the 240GB form we reviewed today, is largely an updated, smaller form factor version of the 520 we met last year. The firmware updates Intel put in place on the 525 seem to improve performance over the 520, and the drive does boast lower idle power consumption although higher active power usage compared to its older, larger brother.
Intel did focus on improving system stability and compatibility with the 525's firmware, which could make it a better solution than competing mSATA SandForce drives, especially for those users who have been burned by SandForce before. With SandForce's 3rd generation controller due out in the second half of the year and M.2 drives due out in a similar timeframe, the 525's honeymoon period really is now. Luckily for Intel, there's a large (and growing) population of mSATA enabled systems on the market today looking for a good SSD to power them. If you're ok with the tradeoffs that come with a SandForce drive, the 525 is probably one of the best mSATA options on the market today.
Unlike in the 2.5" SATA space where there are many controller/firmware combinations to choose from, it's tough finding really good mSATA drives in the etail channel. I'm glad to see Intel aggressively pursuing this market with the 525. I hope we'll see the same attention paid to M.2 when it begins to gain popularity.
I would still like to see Intel use more of its home grown controller technology in drives rather than relying on 3rd party controller vendors. Here's hoping that the technology used in the S3700 will eventually waterfall down to Intel's other products.
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philipma1957 - Wednesday, January 30, 2013 - link
meaker10 have you used a msi gt60?critical_ - Wednesday, January 30, 2013 - link
I'm using Startech's SAT2MSAT25. It is a "passthrough" design so it'll work at 6Gbps is your controller supports it.HyperJuni - Wednesday, January 30, 2013 - link
I was hoping for a comparison with the m4/C400 mSATA 256GB, since it seems to differ a bit in performance from the 128GB model, and would be better suited as a "direct competitor" to the 240GB 525 for the same of comparison IMHO.Too bad you didn't include it in the charts, Anand.
nathanddrews - Wednesday, January 30, 2013 - link
Since IOPS consistency improves significantly when setting aside 25% spare area, what is the practical effect in real world? Has this been documented using the AT Storage Bench? Under default conditions, the 840 Pro dominates the top of the charts, but does it still retain the crown after being "stroked"? Just curious...SanX - Wednesday, January 30, 2013 - link
Is it burning hot for its size? Will it fry your eggs?SanX - Wednesday, January 30, 2013 - link
damn cellphone spell-correction typo and lack of edit option like on cheap websites: ***incompressible***dealcorn - Wednesday, January 30, 2013 - link
The prospect of the S3700 technology in a consumer drive has appeal except that the S3700 uses too much power. Is Intel's approach inherently inefficient or is it reasonable that Intel can tune the technology differently for the consumer market to achieve competitive efficiency?name99 - Wednesday, January 30, 2013 - link
"Why does Intel continue to use a third party SATA controller in many of its flagship drives? Although I once believed this was an issue with Intel having issues on the design front, I now believe that a big part of it has to do with the Intel SSD group being more resource constrained than other groups within the company.
"
This seems strangely short sighted. How is flash controlled on mobile devices?
Obviously performance is substantially lower. It's not clear to me how that lowering is split between
- cheaper, lower-end flash
- only one rank (or whatever flash their call their equivalent), ie limited parallelism
- a dumb controller.
However there doesn't seem to be any aspect of the problem that is inherently power limited.
Which implies that if Intel wanted a way to make their perpetually lagging Atom SOCs a little more noteworthy, one way to do so would be to work on them having flash support that was substantially faster than what's available on ARM today.
emvonline - Thursday, January 31, 2013 - link
Sandforce controllers are high performance, have no DRAM need, and allow both SF standard and custom firmware. Until SF drops the ball on performance or support I would look for more SSDs to be based on the SF design, not less. Enterprise is different ball game where ASPs/margins are much higher so custom controller might make sense (volumes are much lower though). If other 3rd party controllers mature, I expect them to gain market share as well.damnintel - Wednesday, March 13, 2013 - link
heyyyy check this out damnintel dot com