The Intel SSD 540s (480GB) Review
by Billy Tallis on June 23, 2016 9:00 AM ESTAnandTech Storage Bench - The Destroyer
The Destroyer is an extremely long test replicating the access patterns of very IO-intensive desktop usage. A detailed breakdown can be found in this article. Like real-world usage and unlike our Iometer tests, the drives do get the occasional break that allows for some background garbage collection and flushing caches, but those idle times are limited to 25ms so that it doesn't take all week to run the test.
We quantify performance on this test by reporting the drive's average data throughput, a few data points about its latency, and the total energy used by the drive over the course of the test.
On The Destroyer, the ADATA SP550 was able to punch above its weight and perform on par with planar TLC drives of twice the capacity, while the Crucial BX200 performed below expectations. The Intel 540s unfortunately demonstrates more of the latter, with an average data rate that is not as bad as the BX200 but is still clearly outclassed by the Phison S10 TLC drives and the SP550.
As with the average data rate, the average service time of the 540s is poor but not quite as bad as the BX200. The SP550 didn't rank much higher on this metric, but in absolute terms it was significantly faster.
The frequency of latency outliers shows similar rankings, with the Intel 540s near the bottom of the chart and between the two SM2256 drives.
Power efficiency has regressed slightly compared to the SP550, but the Intel 540s clearly doesn't have anything horribly wrong going on the way the BX200 did.
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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.