The Intel SSD 600p (512GB) Review
by Billy Tallis on November 22, 2016 10:30 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.
It is quite clear that the 600p takes a very different approach to managing its 3D TLC than the Crucial MX300. The latter performed much better than most TLC drives when the Heavy test was run on an empty drive, but fell to last place when the test was conducted on a full drive. The 600p by contrast performed quite similarly in both scenarios due to its fixed-size SLC cache. Unfortunately, this means the 600p has no significant advantage over budget SATA SSDs on this test.
The 600p has lower average service times than the planar TLC SATA SSDs, but it isn't up to the level of the Samsung 850 EVO or MLC SATA SSDs.
The percentage of high-latency outliers shows that the 600p is in a category of its own, sitting above planar TLC SSDs that get thoroughly bogged down by the write-heavy test but not good enough to be lumped together with MLC SSDs.
The 600p is less efficient than any M.2 or SATA SSD on this test, and is only matched by the OCZ RD400A because the latter is doing its own 12V to 3.3V conversion instead of drawing directly from the 3.3V supply.
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Billy Tallis - Tuesday, November 22, 2016 - link
The old firmware. The testbed has been too busy with PCIe SSDs lately for me to have a chance to put the November MX300 update through its paces.seanmac2 - Wednesday, November 23, 2016 - link
I would never intentionally buy this product but it bothers me anyway because laptops advertise things like "512 GB PCIe SSD" and I'm left wondering if I'll get this or something sweet like a Samsung 950/951/960.ddriver - Wednesday, November 23, 2016 - link
You get what you pay for. The 600p will likely go into budget products, which won't be CPU powerhouses which may be limited by the sdd performance. Most applications, even prosumer grade software, shows like 1-2$ improvement from going sata to nvme, and this particular product, although technically nvme is more in the sata ballpark.Flying Aardvark - Friday, November 25, 2016 - link
That's why Intel products cost more than others. You do get what you pay for. Intel SSDs have the industry's best reliability, which matters most when your drive fails prematurely. Unlikely if using M.2 you'll see any real world difference between the 600P and anything else.The true step up is the heavy duty Intel 750 stuff with heatsink and zero throttling concerns under heavy, sustained load.
Meteor2 - Wednesday, November 23, 2016 - link
A suggestion: you could link to the previous reviews of devices the first time you mention them, e.g. the 850 Evo. Would save hunting around for them/encourage more page views a people read those reviews before coming back.Meteor2 - Wednesday, November 23, 2016 - link
So where's this drive falling down compared to the other NVMe drives? Is it the TLC NAND, the construction of the dies, the controller, or something else?DominionSeraph - Wednesday, November 23, 2016 - link
"1750MB/s sequential read", and not a single test showing if it could actually reach 1750MB/s sequential read in any real life tasks.Great job there.
beginner99 - Wednesday, November 23, 2016 - link
WTF is this? It's another useless TLC crap drive. Intel, your ruining your reputation and brand with crap like this. I don't see why I should buy this over a MX300 or similar crappy TLC entry level ssd that is even cheaper.Flying Aardvark - Friday, November 25, 2016 - link
Everything is going to be 3D TLC soon except the truly next-level stuff like the Intel 750. 3D TLC is not planar TLC.creed3020 - Wednesday, November 23, 2016 - link
Billy, when are these results going to be included in Bench? I was hoping to compare to my Crucial MX100 but cannot find these Intel drives under SSD2015.