Intel SSD 730 (480GB) Review: Bringing Enterprise to the Consumers

96 Comments

View All Comments

• Mr Perfect - Friday, February 28, 2014 - link

  Because it's edgy and cool, and what the youf are looking for in a SSD... Or at least according to the guys in marketing it is.

• arvivaz - Monday, March 3, 2014 - link

  Not satanic. Just a skull. But its really witty. The skull is tilted like its looking at a PC screen and that looks like a smile. Skin's blown away from the power of the hardware, I suppose. Note the electrical/electronic symbols hidden in the skull. Pretty good.

• star-affinity - Monday, March 17, 2014 - link

  What's so satanic about it? I think it resembles quite well the skull we all carry around…

• amddude10 - Friday, November 28, 2014 - link

  I bought one of these because of its wear tracking/ drive monitoring features, significantly better than crucial m500 power loss protection, high endurance, and long warranty. I didn't buy this SSD for gaming, yet I find the skull endearing. This drive certainly seems likely to live up to the "hardcore" image of the skull, at least in terms of reliability/durability.

• danjw - Thursday, February 27, 2014 - link

  No support for built in encryption, kills that product in my eyes. Sure, the consistency is nice, but I don't see ever using drives that don't have encryption capabilities. That, said I am much more security conscious than most consumers. I always secure wipe drives once I retire them. I care enough to make sure my drives have the on drive encryption enabled. These are for the people that think over much of the Intel brand and think Windows Firewall and Security Essentials are actually a good security choice.

• PEJUman - Thursday, February 27, 2014 - link

  I say having common sense is the best security choice, more so than any specific program/brand of firewall-antivirus.
  
  I see the market for this SSD as near workstation class desktops @ semi-pro/pro setting (think small business). you would be secured behind your IT (camera, chassis intrusion alarm, etc). Not to mention your data on the SSD will be server-backed, negating most of the benefit of encryptions.
  
  I honestly think Intel is no longer chasing true consumer/enthusiast (or anyone with price/performance considerations).

• DesktopMan - Thursday, February 27, 2014 - link

  Since this SSD isn't optimized for mobile, encryption doesn't make all that much sense due to limited ATA password support on mainstream motherboards. Also makes sense that they want to differentiate from the enterprise drive.

• beginner99 - Thursday, February 27, 2014 - link

  Exactly. Encryption is more relevant in laptops and this clearly isn't a laptop drive. That being said I do not see a market for this drive. It's a tiny, tiny niche. The 840 Evo is faster and way cheaper, the M500 is like half the price albeit slower it has more features and I doubt one notices much difference in normal usage scenarios.

• zyxtomatic - Thursday, February 27, 2014 - link

  You can also use the whole disk encryption option in your OS (Windows Bitlocker, Mac FileVault, etc) if your drive doesn't have hardware encryption. The performance hit really isn't that bad, and it protects your data just as well as hardware encryption does. I've been using it on my work and personal laptops for years and it's never been a problem.

• chrnochime - Saturday, March 1, 2014 - link

  And the Evo is in a long line of SSDs that have consistently have drive failures for users within the span of several months, as seen on user reviews. Who gives a shit about faster when it's like playing lottery with using the drive anyway.