The Intel SSD 540s (480GB) Review
by Billy Tallis on June 23, 2016 9:00 AM ESTAnandTech Storage Bench - Light
Our Light storage test has relatively more sequential accesses and lower queue depths than The Destroyer or the Heavy test, and it's by far the shortest test overall. It's based largely on applications that aren't highly dependent on storage performance, so this is a test more of application launch times and file load times. This test can be seen as the sum of all the little delays in daily usage, but with the idle times trimmed to 25ms it takes less than half an hour to run. Details of the Light test can be found here.
Both of the SM2256 drives were near the bottom of the ranking for average data rate on the Light test, and the Intel 540s doesn't improve any. The SP550 had previously performed relatively well for a TLC drive when full, but the latest Phison S10 TLC drives have mostly caught up.
The average service time of the Intel 540s is about the same as the SP550 and close to that of most Phison S10 TLC drives, but the Marvell-based TLC drives from SanDisk do significantly better.
The frequency of latency outliers for the Intel 540s is a little bit worse than the SP550, but all three Silicon Motion-based drives are at the bottom of the chart.
The power efficiency of the Intel 540s is quite good overall and well ahead of any other planar TLC drive.
Facebook
Twitter
RSS
77 Comments
View All Comments
Flunk - Thursday, June 23, 2016 - link
Looks like it's on Intel's low-end product map for well into 2017 (which is as far as that goes).BurntMyBacon - Friday, June 24, 2016 - link
I thought that Intel's low-end was the 300 series. Apparently not anymore:https://benchlife.info/mansion-brighton-stony-beac...
Please post another link to a roadmap if you find one not plastered with a website logo.
JKJK - Thursday, June 23, 2016 - link
520 and 530 stuck with us for forever, even still when they where performance wise surpassed by other manufacturers. And the price didn't budge either, so I suppose 540 will be with us for a while.However, I'm pretty disappointed with Intel on this one. Samsung 750 evo and even 850 evo is way cheaper here in Norway.
Impulses - Thursday, June 23, 2016 - link
They're at price parity in the US right now, 'course the EVO is much better for the money...Flunk - Thursday, June 23, 2016 - link
That's a lot of money to pay for a low-end drive with a Silicon Motion controller. Performance like a Trion, price like an 850 Evo. Good work Intel.BrokenCrayons - Thursday, June 23, 2016 - link
In their defense, it's not a terrible performer relative to other planar TLC drives with the same controller. However, that doesn't excuse the much higher price MSRP. Were I in the market for a new drive, I wouldn't write off TLC, but I would write off the 540 right away based on the cost over its nearest competitors.Guspaz - Thursday, June 23, 2016 - link
So, it's an Intel SSD that doesn't use an Intel controller, doesn't use Intel flash, and provides terrible performance at a much higher prices than the competition.What were they thinking? I've always been a bit of an Intel SSD fanboy (the five standalone SSDs that I've bought over the years have all been Intel, all the way back to the G1), but they've clearly lost their way, and I don't think the next SSD that I buy would be an Intel.
hojnikb - Thursday, June 23, 2016 - link
They probably want to bank on the clueless users, that have little idea of SSD performance but know Intel as a brand.BurntMyBacon - Friday, June 24, 2016 - link
@Guspaz: "So, it's an Intel SSD that doesn't use an Intel controller, doesn't use Intel flash, and provides terrible performance at a much higher prices than the competition."They did use Sandforce controllers for a while. Though their performance was pretty decent at the time. Firmware made the difference in reliability. Since they are still doing their own firmware and validation, I don't think the use of a third party controller or flash is an insurmountable problem. I do think that the product is not priced or named correctly. This should be a 300 series part with a 300 series price.
Note: The relatively high price may be correlated with the fact that they have to acquire flash on the open market and not everything they get is necessarily meeting their validation requirements.
pwil - Wednesday, July 27, 2016 - link
3 in 3xx series means 3y warranty.