Intel SSD Pro 2500 (240GB) Review
by Kristian Vättö on July 30, 2014 5:00 AM ESTFinal Words
I have to say I have never been a fan of business SSDs. They tend to be just consumer SSDs with a couple of software features to justify the higher price tag and this is the case with the Pro 2500. Fundamentally the Pro 2500 is just an SSD 530 with TCG Opal 2.0, IEEE-1667, and vPro support. There is nothing special about the Pro 2500 and if Intel wanted, they could enable the same set of features on the SSD 530 as well. As a result, the whole SSD Pro lineup feels a bit redundant, or at least it is a very obvious effort to increase the profit margin.
I certainly understand Intel's motivation behind the separate business lineup since Intel's goal is to generate profit for shareholders, but from a consumer's perspective the model is bad. The problem is that TCG Opal 2.0 and eDrive will never become consumer friendly features if manufacturers do not include them in their client drives, which is what happens if there is a separate business lineup. Ultimately Opal and eDrive are features that benefit consumers too, even though the gains are more obvious in the business space.
| NewEgg Price Comparison (7/29/2014) | ||||
| 120/128GB | 180GB | 240/256GB | ||
| Intel SSD Pro 2500 | $120 | $160 | $200 | |
| Intel SSD 530 | $94 | $140 | $165 | |
| SanDisk X300s | $125 | - | $196 | |
| Samsung SSD 850 Pro | $130 | - | $200 | |
| Samsung SSD 840 EVO | $90 | - | $140 | |
| Crucial MX100 | $75 | - | $115 | |
| Crucial M550 | $90 | - | $150 | |
The fact is that both Crucial and Samsung can provide the same TCG Opal 2.0 and eDrive encryption while being substantially cheaper. The 256GB MX100 comes in at almost half the price of 240GB Pro 2500, so I find it really hard to justify the extra cost. The only advantages that the Pro 2500 has are the administrator tool with PSID revert support and vPro support for remote management, although PSID revert can be done by a third party tool as well. Hence the only scenario where the Pro 2500 makes sense is a company that relies heavily on vPro for management because the Pro 2500 is the only SSD with vPro support (at least to my knowledge).
All in all, the days of Intel being an interesting player in the client SSD space seem to be over. For the past two years, Intel's focus has been in the higher profit enterprise market and that has happened at the cost of the client SSD business. Nowadays it feels like Intel is just riding on the brand they built several years ago with the X25-M series and the Pro 2500 is another example of Intel's lack of interest and innovation in the client space.
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Impulses - Wednesday, July 30, 2014 - link
I don't think they ever intended to be a major player in the consumer side, low margins and all that, they jumped in to kickstart the market while other OEM couldn't get out of their own way.FunBunny2 - Wednesday, July 30, 2014 - link
Given that Enterprise SSD was the province of small vendors and RAM SSDs for more than a decade before NAND versions began to be built, Intel really has never had an Enterprise presence in SSD. That they make half-hearted attempts, using third-party controllers no less, means they won't be taken seriously. IBM could have bought their SSD shop, but took Texas Memory instead. There's a lesson in that.Kristian Vättö - Wednesday, July 30, 2014 - link
Saying that Intel has no enterprise SSD presence is just nuts. Last year Intel was the #1 enterprise SSD vendor in terms of revenue.http://regmedia.co.uk/2014/06/13/gartner_ww_ent_ss...
http://regmedia.co.uk/2014/06/13/gartner_ssa_revs_...
IBM's SSA revenue is not even close, let alone the fact that the array market is not the same thing as the enterprise SSD market. Many SSA vendors use drives from the enterprise SSD vendors.
FunBunny2 - Thursday, July 31, 2014 - link
Just because Intel/whoever shifts lots o SATA drek to ABC Corp. to fill up desktops and the occasional windoze/*nix document server doesn't make Intel/whoever an Enterprise Storage player.Enterprise Storage means:
fibre channel
serial attached SCSI
InfiniBand
"The first terabyte class FC SSD systems started shipping in February 2003."
Here: http://www.storagesearch.com/ssd-fc.html
You should spend some quality time with Zolt. You'll learn a lot about SSD.
kaix2 - Thursday, July 31, 2014 - link
what a funny bunny. intel focuses more on enterprise ssd and is the #1 vendor in that space. the 3rd part controllers are for low margin consumer drives.mikk - Wednesday, July 30, 2014 - link
Crucial and Samsung are much more interesting for client SSD users nowadays, Intel is more or less dead in this space.jeffrey - Wednesday, July 30, 2014 - link
Crucial more exciting than SanDisk in client SSD?? The value of the Extreme II and performance of the Extreme Pro are more interesting to me than anything Crucial has (price).hojnikb - Wednesday, July 30, 2014 - link
Have you looked at the Crucial prices recently ?They prety much destroy competition with price/GB.
emn13 - Wednesday, July 30, 2014 - link
Given the overall similarity of modern SSD performance in client workloads, price & reliability are the most important aspects (to me). It's not like even a fairly heavy workload will result in differences even a power user is likely to notice.mapesdhs - Wednesday, July 30, 2014 - link
Wow, are you really saying you'd opt for an MX100 instead of the Sandisk X210? Because
that would be a really weird decision (they're almost the same price here). The X210 is by
far the better product yet is only fractionally more.
Ian.