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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mmrezaie - Wednesday, July 30, 2014 - link
good for samsung.CrystalBay - Wednesday, July 30, 2014 - link
Good article as always Hellhound, Yes 850 P is wanted .AnnonymousCoward - Thursday, July 31, 2014 - link
As always, not a single real world test to tell us the tangible difference of this drive versus others.hojnikb - Wednesday, July 30, 2014 - link
Intel really dropped the ball on whole consumer ssd business.And now this drive. This thing doesn't even have a single intel component inside. So pretty much, this is a Sandforce drive with Intel badge on it.
Krysto - Wednesday, July 30, 2014 - link
Intel has dropped the ball on all consumer markets lately. They're losing billions a year subsidizing Atom, just to be price-competitive with ARM chips, and now they're a full year behind with Broadwell, which won't see mainstream shipping until first half of 2015. Also, Broadwell sucks, too. But that won't stop Intel from making bombastic claims about it, which I can already see ("HALF the power consumption of Haswell" - but with much lower performance, which we won't tell you about, until you've already been suckered into buying one).tarqsharq - Wednesday, July 30, 2014 - link
I remember when they slipped up with the P4 "NetBurst" architecture. Trying to win the Ghz wars.Maybe AMD will have a chance to come back on the chip end, I like their low end solutions that are coming out, and I miss being able to be an AMD fan boy and not be ignoring reality.
hojnikb - Wednesday, July 30, 2014 - link
> They're losing billions a year subsidizing Atom, just to be price-competitive with ARM chips, and now they're a full year behind with Broadwell, which won't see mainstream shipping until first half of 2015.Heh, i was not aware of that. It seems, that Intel needs to put its priorities right. :)
nonoverclock - Wednesday, July 30, 2014 - link
Wow. Exaggerate much and have an axe to grind? "Losing billions a year"? "Broadwell sucks, too" - I haven't read that review yet can you link to it?extide - Wednesday, July 30, 2014 - link
I think Krysto takes Charlie as "FullyAccurate" hahahaAlthough, I do think Intel just needs to ditch Atom and come up with a custom IP ARM core, build a SoC out of it, put gen 7 graphics, a modern radio, etc. It will be great!
Samus - Wednesday, July 30, 2014 - link
Intel is the second most profitable tech company in the world, only beaten by Apple. I don't think the SSD business is their priority anymore. They did their job with the X25, jump starting the SSD race. They needed to do this because hard disks were becoming such a bottleneck that it was literally holding them back from selling performance CPU's.I predict they will exit the SSD market now that they've propped it up. This drive is clear proof of just that.