The Intel SSD 540s (480GB) Review
by Billy Tallis on June 23, 2016 9:00 AM ESTAnandTech Storage Bench - Heavy
Our Heavy storage benchmark is proportionally more write-heavy than The Destroyer, but much shorter overall. The total writes in the Heavy test aren't enough to fill the drive, so performance never drops down to steady state. This test is far more representative of a power user's day to day usage, and is heavily influenced by the drive's peak performance. The Heavy workload test details can be found here.
On the Heavy test, the Intel 540s achieves an average data rate that is once again between the two SM2256 drives, but this is also par for Phison TLC drives.
The average service time of the Intel 540s is actually slightly better than the SP550 and significantly better than the BX200, but still poor compared to the best planar TLC drives.
The frequency of high-latency outliers for the 540s is half that of the BX200, but still clearly worse than the other TLC drives and more than an order of magnitude higher than the MLC drives.
The Intel 540s managed to improve on power efficiency compared to either SM2256 drive, putting it around the middle of the rankings.
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Stuka87 - Thursday, June 23, 2016 - link
So disappointing. I bought up some Intel 740's because they were being discontinued. Glad I did now.prime2515103 - Thursday, June 23, 2016 - link
Did that BX200 really pull 45.69 watts in The Destroyer or is that a typo? How is that even possible?JoeMonco - Thursday, June 23, 2016 - link
The drive is broken garbage. That's how.Billy Tallis - Thursday, June 23, 2016 - link
That's Watt-hours. The Destroyer takes a typical SATA drive around 12 hours to run, so most drives are averaging a little over 1W.prime2515103 - Friday, June 24, 2016 - link
Oh I see... I'm going to have to read the testing methodology again, it's been awhile.cbjwthwm - Tuesday, June 28, 2016 - link
Did you do any re-testing of the drive with the firmware update 031C Intel released for it? It's too bad it can only be updated via ISO vs the Toolbox, and I found the ISO buggy (claimed it failed, but actually updated ok) which they have since pulled for "maintenance" ;)darkfalz - Friday, June 24, 2016 - link
Why does AT waste time reviewing a market segment where there is something like 5% noticeable difference across the board? And yet still haven't reviewed 10x0 series...vladx - Friday, June 24, 2016 - link
Guess the replacement for my Samsung 840 Evo is still going to be Sandisk X400. Intel's new SSD is a dissapointment.zodiacfml - Sunday, June 26, 2016 - link
Why? I guess, someone decided that the company should have a product at this price.fanofanand - Monday, June 27, 2016 - link
So Intel wants to charge the "Intel premium" while none of the components are Intel designed or made? Oh how the mighty have fallen. Between this drive, the $400 compute stick, and $1700 consumer CPUs, Intel is showing us just how out of touch they are with today's consumer markets.