Intel to launch speedy 510 series SSDs on March 1?

[Airbot]

Folks looking to treat themselves to a new SSD may want delay the upgrade for a couple of weeks. VR-Zone reports that Intel plans to launch its new 510 series SSDs less than two weeks from now on March 1. Codenamed "Elm Crest," the drives will mark Intel's first to utilize the latest SATA III (6Gb/s) interface, which we've seen on competing products such as Crucial's RealSSD C300.

The 510 series will use the same 34nm NAND MLC flash chips as the second-gen X-25M and will debut in two capacities: 120GB and 250GB.

more..

 

[Brink]

I sure hope that it's not only the larger volumes that have the faster speeds.

 

[ignatzatsonic]

Yeah, until they get to at least 1 TB in size and relatively cheap, I won't be interested in one for more than the OS--maybe 80 GB.

 

[pparks1]

Yeah, until they get to at least 1 TB in size and relatively cheap, I won't be interested in one for more than the OS--maybe 80 GB.

It's always a matter of cost. Right now, it's too prohibitive to use them for storage. And for things like music files and what not, I don't need to be able to read and write them super fast. As long as my player reads it fast enough to not skip in playback then all is well.

 

[Bill]

I think I will stick with my 160SSD until 500GB or above is announced. Wonder how much faster theses will be on SATA III.

Bill

 

[JordanJP]

I want one but it's a lot of money, I've got an 80GB Intel SSD, thinking of using it in combination with my 500GB HDD.

 

[richnrockville]

Yeah, until they get to at least 1 TB in size and relatively cheap, I won't be interested in one for more than the OS--maybe 80 GB.

Feel lucky, I paid over $800 for my first 30 MEGABYTE hard disk. :devil:
Just paid almost $500 for a 256gig SSD from Crucial.. and happy to pay.
Rich

 

[jebuchanan]

Curiosity question. Why must it be SATA III for the new SSD's? What about all the SATA II machines out there?

 

[Brink]

Curiosity question. Why must it be SATA III for the new SSD's? What about all the SATA II machines out there?

Hello John,

Not to worry, SATA III drives are backwards compatible and will work just as well connected to SATA II ports. It just will not be able to reach it's full transfer rates unless connected to a SATA III port. That's all.

Everyone is wanting SATA III to be able to have faster transfer rates with SSDs that can actually transfer faster than SATA II rate limits.

Serial ATA - Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia

Hope this helps,
Shawn

 

[Phone Man]

Lots of new ones coming out.

OCZ Vertex 3
Crucial C400
Intel 510

Finally a need for SATA III 6Gbs interface.

I love competition.

Who's next?

Jim

 

[Brink]

Looking at this, it looks like the OCZ Vertex 3 Pro will be the better of the 3 so far.

OCZ's Vertex 3 Pro: Second-Gen SandForce Perf Preview : Meet OCZ's Vertex 3 Pro

 

[Dave76]

Intel's new SSD 510, 500 MB/s Read and 315MB/s Write speeds

Intel has released the 510 SSD with 34nm nand, 500MB/s sequential read and 315 MB/s writes.

Intel Announces Next in Solid-State Drive Line Up: Intel® SSD 510 Series Featuring Super-Fast 6Gbps SATA Throughput

Ideal for Gamers, Media Creators and Workstation Users, Intel's Newest SSD Takes Full Advantage of 2nd Generation Intel® Core™ Processors

NEWS HIGHLIGHTS
Intel SSD 510, next in series of Intel SSD introductions for 2011, transfers more data in less time.
Ideal for gamers, media creators, performance-intensive workstations, Intel SSD 510 offers fastest available sequential performance.
Intel SSD 510 with 6Gbps SATA interface outperforms 10,000 RPM HDDs by 50 percent for fast performance and high visual fidelity game play.1

SANTA CLARA, Calif., Feb. 28, 2011 – Intel Corporation announced today the next in a line of new solid-state drives (SSD), the Intel® Solid-State Drive 510 Series. The new Intel SSD 510 features fast SATA 6 Gigabits per second (Gbps) performance to take full advantage of Intel's transition to higher speed SATA bus interfaces on the recently introduced 2nd Generation Intel® Core™ processor-based platforms. Supporting data transfers of up to 500 megabytes per second (MB/s), the Intel SSD 510 doubles the sequential read speeds, and at up to 315MB/s more than triples the sequential write speeds of Intel's current 3Gbps SSDs, to transfer more data in less time. This makes it ideal for demanding gamers, media creators, performance-intensive workstation users and any technology enthusiast.

The Intel SSD 510 offers the fastest sequential read and write speeds of any consumer SATA SSD available today, providing industry leading performance that beats a traditional hard disk drive (HDD) by more than 50 percent.1 In addition to better overall system responsiveness when compared to a mechanical hard drive, SSDs have no moving parts so are more rugged, consume less power and run quieter and cooler than HDDs. SSDs reduce boot times, launch applications and files faster and recover from sleep mode quicker, resulting in noticeable improvement. Conventional HDDs are also unable to effectively take advantage of 6Gbps platform technology, since HDDs fail to maximize even the current 3Gbps SATA interface.

The Intel SSD 510 Series uses proven Intel 34-nanometer NAND flash memory to deliver best-in-class sequential performance of up to 500MB/s sequential read speeds and up to 315 MB/s writes for its high-capacity model. The product is available now and comes in a 250GB capacity priced at $584 and a 120GB at $284, for 1,000-unit quantities. Both products include a limited 3-year warranty. The 120GB version is an excellent choice for dual-drive desktops, a hybrid configuration gaining in popularity. In this type of set up, the operating system, favorite applications and games are accessed from the SSD for faster boot up and accelerated application performance, while the HDD is used to store data.

More...

PRODUCT BRIEF
Intel® Solid-State Drive 510 Series


SATA 6Gb/s Sustained Bandwidth Performanc(Iometer* Queue Depth 32)
—250 GB:
Sequential Read: Up to 500 MB/s
Sequential Write: Up to 315 MB/s
—120 GB:
Sequential Read: Up to 450 MB/s
Sequential Write: Up to 210 MB/s

Read and Write IOPS
(Iometer Queue Depth 32)
— Random 4 KB Reads: Up to 20,000 IOPS
— Random 4 KB Writes: Up to 8,000 IOPS

 

[pparks1]

That's a good performance upgrade over what is currently available from everybody else. Looks like 120GB to be about $270 and 250GB model around $550.

 

[toughbook]

It really chaps me that they lower the performance specs on the smaller drives. Thank you to Samsung for offering there 470 series in 3 different sizes with them all being the same speeds.

 

[Dave76]

It is due to the number of chips they put on the SSD, need 10 chips to get 10 channels.

True, they could put smaller chips and get the 10 channels, but it depends on the chip size that are available.


Intel is not using their own controller.

Intel Officially Announces 510 Series 6Gbps SSDs

Instead of using an in-house controller, Intel's new 510 Series SSDs make use of a Marvell 88SS9174-BKK2 controller. As a result, the new 6Gbps SSDs offer read speeds of 500MB/sec and write speeds of up to 315MB/sec.

Looking at this, it looks like the OCZ Vertex 3 Pro will be the better of the 3 so far.
OCZ's Vertex 3 Pro: Second-Gen SandForce Perf Preview : Meet OCZ's Vertex 3 Pro

Not so sure about that, will need to see some benchmarks on all the new G3 SSDs before I'm convinced.

OCZ uses ATTO, the most compressible data test available, which gives them the highest sequential numbers possible. On their forum they have admitted that they do everything possible to the SSD and system to get those numbers, they also admit that the experienced enthusiest will not be able to match those numbers.
There are several threads on their forum where this has been hotly discussed.
IMHO not the best marketing scheme, it leaves the customer with a not so good feeling when they run their own benchmarks.

Giving OCZ some credit for posting the Vertex2 AS SSD, toughest benchmark for SSDs - non compressible data, benchmarks on their website:



This shows the non-compressible sequential rates for the Vertex2.

I'm not a fanboi at all but, in comparision Intel published rates can be exceeded if you have a good setup.
Have to give them credit for credible numbers.

In my research I would have to give OCZ G2 the edge on best actual numbers and performance.
Intel has better access times, which is beneficial.
At the end of the day the difference in speed between the two are likely not noticeable except in benchmarks.

I'm waiting for the benchmark comparisons of the new G3 SSDs.
Remember, the Intel 510 is 34nm therefore still a G2 SSD.

I think I will stick with my 160SSD until 500GB or above is announced. Wonder how much faster theses will be on SATA III.

Here are the SATA2 vs SATA3 performance numbers.

Lots of new ones coming out.

OCZ Vertex 3
Crucial C400
Intel 510

Finally a need for SATA III 6Gbs interface.

I love competition.

Who's next?

Jim

Just remember some are G3 (25nm) and some are G2(34nm).

OCZ Vertex 3 - G3 (25nm)
Crucial C400 - G3 (25nm)
Intel 510 - G2(34nm)

Seems to be some issues with the 25nm nand, useage cycles are 3,000 compared to 34nm nand at 5,000 and 50nm nand at 10,000.
They claim to have a way to mitigate this by having the controller write less.
Think I'll wait and see the results before I jump in.

 

[Zen00]

The Intel drive isn't a great deal so far from preliminary results. Its looking like the Sandforce based controllers are going to be the drives to beat this generation.

 

[toughbook]

If others can do it, I feel confident Intel can if anybody.

 

[jebuchanan]

Curiosity question. Why must it be SATA III for the new SSD's? What about all the SATA II machines out there?

Hello John,

Not to worry, SATA III drives are backwards compatible and will work just as well connected to SATA II ports. It just will not be able to reach it's full transfer rates unless connected to a SATA III port. That's all.

Everyone is wanting SATA III to be able to have faster transfer rates with SSDs that can actually transfer faster than SATA II rate limits.

Serial ATA - Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia

Hope this helps,
Shawn

Yes it does.
Thank you.

 

[Brink]

Curiosity question. Why must it be SATA III for the new SSD's? What about all the SATA II machines out there?

Hello John,

Not to worry, SATA III drives are backwards compatible and will work just as well connected to SATA II ports. It just will not be able to reach it's full transfer rates unless connected to a SATA III port. That's all.

Everyone is wanting SATA III to be able to have faster transfer rates with SSDs that can actually transfer faster than SATA II rate limits.

Serial ATA - Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia

Hope this helps,
Shawn

Yes it does.
Thank you.

You're welcome John.

 

[Dave76]

Here are some Intel 510 reviews:

Intel SSD 510 Review (250GB)

The Intel SSD 510 Review