The Full Intel SSD 525 Review: 30GB, 60GB, 120GB, 180GB & 240GB Tested
by Anand Lal Shimpi on February 3, 2013 2:30 AM EST- Posted in
- Storage
- SSDs
- Intel
- SandForce
- Intel SSD 520
- Intel SSD 525
Performance vs. Transfer Size
ATTO does a good job of showing us how sequential performance varies with transfer size. Most controllers optimize for commonly seen transfer sizes and neglect the rest. The optimization around 4KB, 8KB and 128KB transfers makes sense given that's what most workloads are bound by, but it's always important to understand how a drive performs across the entire gamut.
In the initial 525 review I compared the SSD to other drives including the 520:
As you can see there's little difference between the 525 and the 520. SandForce also does a good job of performing well across all transfer sizes, which seems to be less common in some of the newer controllers.
ATTO uses easily compressible data so if we toss all of the 525 capacities into the mix we end up with a bunch of curves that nearly overlap one another:
The 30GB model's peak write speed is capped noticeably lower than the rest as it only has a total of four NAND die to stripe across, but the rest are bound by the speed at which the DuraWrite engine can do its job.
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ezrasam - Wednesday, February 6, 2013 - link
Can I add this to my 2 year old Dell N5010?Hok - Thursday, February 7, 2013 - link
hello upgrade to my MSI GT70.... love seeing the mSATA tests!!! THANKS! though the transcend mSATAs currently in there don't seem to be that bad... I would just like more storage. (2 RAID 64s)should I wait for crucial M500?
LeadvilleMatt - Thursday, February 14, 2013 - link
Does anyone know if the current Intel eSATA 525 supports the E7h Flush Cache command? The original SF-22xx did not.Thanks.
damnintel - Wednesday, March 13, 2013 - link
heyyyy check this out damnintel dot commsahni - Monday, March 25, 2013 - link
Hi there,I am contemplating buying mSATA drives 240GB-256GB range. It is really becoming confusing to purchase a drive considering so many different specs.
My options are
1) Crucial m4 mSATA 256GB http://www.newegg.com/Product/Product.aspx?Item=N8...
2) Plextor M5M 256GB http://www.newegg.com/Product/Product.aspx?Item=N8...
3) Intel SSD 525 240GB http://www.newegg.com/Product/Product.aspx?Item=N8...
4) Mushkin Enhanced Atlas 240GB http://www.newegg.com/Product/Product.aspx?Item=N8...
I have not been able to get a head to head comparison of the drives anywhere. Most of the tech spec shootouts are of these drives against older models.
Could you please advise which of these drives in your opinion would be the most eligible buy in a real world consumer scenario..
Cheers....
KVSNARAYANAN - Monday, November 11, 2013 - link
What is the difference between Intel 525 Series SSDMCEAC180B301 & Intel 525 Series SSDMCEAC180A301. I want to replace my Intel 80GB with a 180GB. The last 4 digits are A301 & not B301. Where as B301 is easily available in the market the availability of A301 is very negligible. K.V.S.Narayanan - India (kvsnarayanan@gmail.com)