Intel SSD 335 (240GB) Review
by Kristian Vättö on October 29, 2012 11:30 AM ESTRandom Read/Write Speed
The four corners of SSD performance are as follows: random read, random write, sequential read and sequential write speed. Random accesses are generally small in size, while sequential accesses tend to be larger and thus we have the four Iometer tests we use in all of our reviews.
Our first test writes 4KB in a completely random pattern over an 8GB space of the drive to simulate the sort of random access that you'd see on an OS drive (even this is more stressful than a normal desktop user would see). I perform three concurrent IOs and run the test for 3 minutes. The results reported are in average MB/s over the entire time. We use both standard pseudo randomly generated data for each write as well as fully random data to show you both the maximum and minimum performance offered by SandForce based drives in these tests. The average performance of SF drives will likely be somewhere in between the two values for each drive you see in the graphs. For an understanding of why this matters, read our original SandForce article.
Random read performance has never been SandForce's biggest strength and even Intel couldn't massively improve it with its own firmware. The SSD 335 is in fact slower than the SSD 330 here.
Random write speed at small queue depths is also slower compared to the 520 and 330, although at queue depth of 32 the difference is negligible.
Sequential Read/Write Speed
To measure sequential performance I ran a 1 minute long 128KB sequential test over the entire span of the drive at a queue depth of 1. The results reported are in average MB/s over the entire test length.
Sequential read performance is identical to SSD 330, but sequential write speed is slightly slower. What's notable is sequential write performance with incompressible data: the Intel SSD 335 manages to beat both the 520 and Corsair's Force GS by a noticeable margin.
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sheh - Tuesday, October 30, 2012 - link
Thanks for the clarification.jwilliams4200 - Thursday, November 1, 2012 - link
I think the most accurate figure is the write amplification during the 4KiB QD32 test.In your first table, E1 = 1.51 TiB (Intel seems to have the same bug as Windows, labeling TB when they mean TiB)
And F9 = 1208 GiB (I am assuming it is GiB not GB, since Intel usually seems to use the binary power units)
Then in the last table, E1 = 3.90 TiB and F9 = 37791 GiB.
Then WA = (37791 - 1208) / (3.90 - 1.51) / 1024 = 14.95
So WA is about 15 for the QD32 4KiB random writes.
jwilliams4200 - Monday, October 29, 2012 - link
What is the exact wording from Intel for the $184 price?The article says MSRP, but in the past, Intel has often quoted their distributor price for 1000 units. In other words, how much newegg would pay Intel if they ordered 1000 units.
So I am wondering whether $184 is really the MSRP, or whether it is the 1000 unit price (in which case the street price would be higher than $184)
Kristian Vättö - Monday, October 29, 2012 - link
Intel said the $184 is the RCP/MSRP (Recommended Customer Price/Manufacturer's Suggested Retail Price).jwilliams4200 - Monday, October 29, 2012 - link
Thank you for the clarification. So apparently newegg is selling for significantly more than the RCP (currently $210).Kristian Vättö - Monday, October 29, 2012 - link
Thanks for the heads up, I updated the article with the NewEgg pricing info. I guess this once again proves that MSRPs are totally meaningless.MadMan007 - Monday, October 29, 2012 - link
Or it proves that Newegg prices a bit high on newly launched tech. Maybe Newegg shouldn't be used as the sole basis for pricing any more.jwilliams4200 - Monday, October 29, 2012 - link
No, it is not just newegg. The cheapest price (from a major retailer) that I see for the 335 now is $195 from buy.com. Most of the others want more than $200 including shipping.meloz - Monday, October 29, 2012 - link
SSDs continue to be a minefield for consumers. It is pathetic that this SSD wore out as quickly as it did. Such a fundamental issue should have been caught in Intel's internal testing before the drive was dispatched for reviewing, specially when the drive started with MWI of 92. No one at Intel thought this was odd?Looks like we will have to wait another 18 months for SSDs to become truly reliable. But I thought the same 18 months ago. Ugh. Only the Samsung 840 inspires some sort of confidence.
I shudder to think how these manufacturers will cope with newer NAND in future which will have even lesser write-erase cycle life.
Reading about all these laughable "oops" by SSD manufacturers makes you *really* appreciate the job Segate, WD and Samsung do with their platter drives.
jeffrey - Monday, October 29, 2012 - link
After Anandtech's 840 Pro review sample died, I'm not super inspired with confidence about the plain 840.