New Intel SSD's

So, we've all been waiting for the new G3's... 600GB!!!


EDIT* Also of SIGNIFIGANT note.... the X-25e is moving to enterprise grade MLC instead of the expensive SLC.

 

sign me up for a sub $250 X25M 160gb refresh or sub $400 X25M 300gb.

wonder if it'll be worth waiting for the lyndonville X25E's though.

 

I'm still wondering about the price too. If they can up capacity from 80GB to 160GB and still keep the 80's price, I'm in. IDK what those high capacity ones, like the 300 & 600GB ones are going to cost, and the 400GB X-25e is going to be astronomical!

 

160GB, increased performance, $250???

Hell yes. I'll go into debt just to buy that thing!

Mr. Mysterious

 

Everyone can agree that pricing on SSD's is still redic, right?

 

As of now, yes.

Mr. Mysterious

 

I'm assuming these are some good ssd's ?
Which one would be worth to look at with with a budget of $300 or less ?

 

I'd trust Intel's SSD's more than I would any other brand. But I'd wait until these are a reality before buying, as these will likely bring better write speeds, more advanced controllers, and a MUCH better price per capacity ratio.

 

Doesn't look like there is anything new since the last time I read about Intel's refresh... there was an article a few weeks ago about the new eMLC and basically it's cheaper and not quite as reliable as SLC but significantly cheaper.

 

Interesting. I was really wondering about that. I guess they got the reliability numbers they were looking for with eMLC? Got a link?

 

Intel to Use Enterprise MLC in Next-Gen Enterprise Solid-State Drives - X-bit labs

I remember posting about this in the SSD thread.

 

hopefully this shakes up ssd pricing. Currently its too high and stable for too long. I am hoping this takes ssd pricing below 1.50 pgb may be even close to 1 pgb.

 

It'd be perfect at $1, but maybe unrealistic for companies to lower to such price ? I haven't followed ssd at all due to pricing, but I'm starting to notice that here and there, with sales or MiR it's starting to geta bit atractive.

 

If prices are reasonable, I would definitely get the Intel G3 160 GB. I also wonder if they'll lower prices for the G2 ones. If so, I wouldn't mind getting a previous gen 160 GB at a lower price especially if there's not really a huge significant difference between the two generations. I just want something that's a lot faster than a traditional HHD. But right now, I feel like 600 GB is so hard to fathom haha...

 

Intel's roadmap has slipped out which includes all of their SSDs for the rest of this year and into Q1 2011. Part of this of course is the new X25-M G3, based on Intel's new 25nm MLC NAND.

Intel has confirmed the end of year launch we expected, but the capacities are new. It will come in 160GB, 300GB and a whopping 600GB.

The rest of the line gets refreshed too, the X25-V gets 25nm MLC too for instance.

Intel's SSD Roadmap Leaked - X25-M G3 Confirmed for 2010 | StorageReview.com

 

We already have a thread on this. It would be nice if somebody knew the pricing...

 

BTW roadmap is showing G3 as postville refresh. So are we going to see huge boost in write performance? Will it at least max out SATA2.

That means Taylorsville ssd should release sometime next year that may be even bigger change.

 

I eagerly await Gen 5 to upgrade from my G2. Hopefully by then they will be a standard option in laptops.

 

lol but seriously , their performance has to better.. the write speeds of intel SSD's are horrnedus.. i'm much more happy and better off with a crucial C300.. it seems to be cheaper per gb compared to the intel too.

 

I'd take a guess the 300 will be $499 and the 600 $899, to really put the hurt on the other vendors who are comparing well in performance and price to the aging G2. Also the 899 makes it more sensible to go with one larger drive, in terms of cost, rather than dual 300's. Dual 300's will cost a bit more, but will perform better too.

If I'm right about this pricing, and the performances increases that seem likely, the market will get shaken up again, just as it did when they first introduced the G1. And Intel has made a fairly large amount of profit on shaking things up like that because they can sell on volume and make the large gains therefrom.

 

for 600GB it should be 1K+++..

 

That would actually be much cheaper (in terms of $ per GB) than anything worth buying currently on the market. It works out to $1.66 and $1.50 respectively whereas there isn't anything out there under $2 right now unless you find some extreme sale.

On the other hand, if Intel wants to drop the prices, they can do it. They're currently selling the 160GB G2 for $415 on newegg, but that has 34nm flash. The most naive extrapolation from 34n to 25nm gives me about a factor of 1.85 so the same 160GB drive could sell for on the order of $225, the 300GB for $420 and the 600GB for $840. They're not going to go that low because they want to recoup the R&D and transition costs, but your numbers are quite plausible.

 

Even though many people are saying it, I find it hard to believe Intel would suddenly price their products way below the market. It just doesn't seem like Intel.

 

When they first come out I think they will be expensive, maybe not the very first wave but soon as the supply/demand wall is hit like Intel always has done with their SSD's stores start jacking up prices and people buyout retailers and resell higher on ebay.

Once supply/demand normalizes I would not be surprised if Intel takes the lead on most desirable SSD again and maybe the best in the price vs performance category.

The cheaper lower performing value SSD's will probably still take best ssd for price vs performance at a pure mathematical level but for those willing to get a ssd they would probably pay a it more for the better performance of the Intel witch has proven itself to be both fast and reliable.

Put me on the waiting list for a 160GB G3 if the price is something I can manage.

 

I think it would be smart for me to ebay my 2x gen 2 160GB intel ssd's now. They just sitting here collecting dust no laptop to put em in now. I think the success of the gen 3 intels will depend on a few things. If they can make the price right then it will be ok if the gen 3 intels are still a little slower then a king if speed the c300. You can get a c300 256GB for 550. If the 300GB is 500 or more it has to out perform the c300 or atleast equal it. If they can get the 300GB 450 or less then a small performance hit for larger cap and 100 dollars less wont be so bad. I think 300 gig is the perfect size for an ssd. I can put my OS, a ton of games, a ton of apps and still have enough room to put a nice variety of music and videos on my laptop for on the go usage, then store the bulk of my media on my 2TB external.

 

If the 300GB costs less than a 920XM ES, then I'm getting the 300GB version. If not, I'm going for a 920XM ES and a M-XT.

 

Horrendous is a bit dramatic - max sequential is not much faster than a spinner but in practice people who don't move around large files would never notice the couple seconds lost.

 

Exactly, the difference in performance is pretty much negligible in most real life situations. People are just fooled by marketing bigger numbers, when the real metrics of performance are never discussed by these companies (ie. random R/W speeds).

 

And in addition, the C300 doesn't have stellar sequential write speeds either.

My 64GB C300 has something like 75MB/sec sequential.

 

Ew!

 

Actually, as long as it's SSD, the speed is really not noticeable, the difference is only noticeable between standard HDD and SSD, because the random read/write difference is so huge.

Meaning, I don't give a damn even if intel isn't the fastest SSD around in terms of benchmark, as long as it's the cheapest/gb and most reliable ssd around, that's all that matters.

 

Ok. C300 (75 MB/sec seq. write) vs. Vertex LE (245 MB/sec seq. write)

Install MS Office. Which one is the fastest you think?

 

that's for the 64gb version, the 128gb is 140MB/sec and the 256gb is 215MB/sec

 

ya , the 64GB is u know what.. the 128GB is better...

 

You guys might want to adjust your price estimates. That story says Intel killed the 80GB V series and will release a 80GB G3 instead. I think Intel is going to have a bit of a drop (maybe not as much as the MSRP for the G2 vs G1) but you aren't going to see a 160GB G3 at the price point of a current 80GB at launch

 

Phil, didn't I try to talk you out of that C300

 

Yes you tried

Well I had the choice between a Vertex LE 50GB and a C300 64GB. I've benchmarked them quite extensively against each other. Differences for my usage we're very minor. Only during heavy multi tasking the Vertex LE was quicker.

So I went for more capacity. And possibly more future proofing. (not that I'm a big believer in the latter)

 

The 80GB V series should still be around...

 

Uh, what 80GB V series exists now?

 

Maybe I read that wrong, but I read that Xbit article as Intel decided not to do a 80GB V for the immediate future. Goes against the leaked slide. "Quite interestingly, but Intel decided not to introduce value X25-V 80GB SSDs either in Q4 2010 or Q1 2011 and instead of it the firm plans to release X25-V 40GB drive with 25nm MLC NAND." Intel to Use Enterprise MLC in Next-Gen Enterprise Solid-State Drives - X-bit labs

@Jayayess Doesn't exist as a G2, thats for sure.

 

I wouldn't want to jump on Intel's new SSDs just yet. Intel has a good history of firmware bugs for the initial release or two, *and* it is a new process technology (25nm).

25nm might be cheap, and this is a problem that will affect all SSDs from every vendor, but data retention is lower meaning that the cells will have to be refreshed more often (leading to a lower lifespan).

No idea how bad the problem is going to be, but once again SSDs are still relatively new technology in the field and their long term survivability has not been proven yet (heck, long term survivability seems to be a myth if you read OCZ's technology forums).

 

I'm not so sure about that, where exactly did you get that information from? I do however agree that the long term reliability of SSDs have yet to be established.

 

Okay I read it and it seems they are saying that Intel wll release a 40GB V drive instead of an 80GB one.

 

Actually, Intel's track record wrt firmware is quite good. I totally understand where you're coming from, and I certainly don't deny the issues we encountered with the G1 and G2.

However, those happened at a time when Intel first got into the SSD business. If you look at chipset or other drivers from Intel, even initial releases are quite good. Intel comes out with an improved controller for the G3, sure, but SSDs are certainly more mature at this point. For example, when the G2 firmware was released, TRIM was brand-new. Now we've had it for almost a year and Intel doesn't have that many new things on its plate.

 

It's hard to make that assumption as it seems every time new hardware is introduced, there are firmware problems or compatibility problems. They've been an issue with new gear for Intel, OCZ, Crucial, etc. Now, I will say that with Intel's budget and experience, they should do better, but I'd expect a few hiccups until they get tens of thousands of these new units out and in systems outside their control.

 

Hey there, just wondering why 25nm is cheaper than the larger ones?

Also, I couldn't find a general agreement on other threads as to what the very fast 4KB write speeds on the Intel SSDs benefits most. If I'm not using computational programs and mainly browsing, medium gaming, office, Skype, torrenting, movies/tv, external monitor, and general multitasking; then will I see a great benefit from 4KB write?

Trying to compare the Intel M (160GB) vs. Corsair F120 vs. Kingston SSDNow

 

Random writes aren't that important. It's just a synthetic benchmark that can be a nice indicator for the controller. It's not a good indicator for real world performance.

Actually the Corsair Force and Crucial C300 offer higher random writes than Intel. Bench - SSD - AnandTech :: Your Source for Hardware Analysis and News

 

What's better if your case cat is to compare real world benchmarks for the scenarios in which you plan on using the drive most. Thats the direction we're going with benchmarks since it's more meaningful to most users than the synthetics. We're up to three, adding gaming to our productivity and HTPC profiles. Hope to keep adding more as we can create unique scenarios.

 

I couldn't agree more! Having had several dud SSD's I feel now very cautious about SSD's in general. I really want to return to them but the risk is too great. When shops start selling cheap laptops with SSD's in them instead of 320GB HDD's then I will know finally they guaranteed to last longer than their warranty. Maybe a compromise between performance and reliability can be struck before that time with hybrid drives. All I know is when I returned to a spinner recently I realised SSD's time hasn't come quite yet.

Still I recommend people to buy em as SSD's are the future and technology needs our money to develop. Just not any more of my own

 

Well, to me a big red flag is when many disk manufacturers only give a 1 or 2 year warranty on their SSDs, but give a 3 or even 5 year warranty on their standard hard drives. Yet they boast about SSD's supposed reliability.