Intel Cutting SSD Prices in August

[John P. Myers]

Don't buy one yet! Take a look at the models and their new prices before you make your purchase :)


SSD 520 60 GB: OEM price down from $99 to $89; Reseller pack down from $109 to $99 (9% cut)
SSD 520 120 GB: OEM price down from $179 to $129; Reseller pack down from $189 to $139 (26.4% cut)
SSD 520 180 GB: OEM price down from $269 to $189; Reseller pack down from $279 to $199 (28.6% cut)
SSD 520 240 GB: OEM price down from $339 to $249; Reseller pack down from $349 to $259 (25.8% cut)
SSD 520 480 GB: OEM price down from $799 to $494; Reseller pack down from $809 to $594 (37.7% cut)

SSD 330 60 GB: Reseller pack price down from $94 to $69 (26.5% cut)
SSD 330 120 GB: Reseller pack price down from $149 to $104 (30.2% cut)
SSD 330 180 GB: Reseller pack price down from $234 to $154 (34.1% cut)

[rgathright]

$129 for a 120Gb SSD? Sweet! :-?

[c303a]

That may be a great price for Intel but you can get them cheaper right now. I've got 2 of these and couldn't be more pleased and I got the rebate with no problem. Just make sure you order the mounting kit for it. None comes with it.

http://www.newegg.com/Product/Product.aspx?Item=N82E16820227726

[John P. Myers]

That may be a great price for Intel but you can get them cheaper right now. I've got 2 of these and couldn't be more pleased and I got the rebate with no problem. Just make sure you order the mounting kit for it. None comes with it.

http://www.newegg.com/Product/Product.aspx?Item=N82E16820227726

Yeah you still can't beat OCZ in my opinion. And that OCZ Agility 3 was rated at 2,000,000 hours (228 years) MTBF while the Intel's are only 1,200,000 hours (137 years). But, these Intel's that are being put on sale are of a slightly higher tier than the Agility 3 series and will be faster. The Vertex 3 series from OCZ though stomps a mudhole in these Intel SSD's, with the read and write speed up to just over 2x faster vs. Intel's 300 series. On Intel's 500 series, they improved things alot and are about even with the Vertex 3. The OCZ Vertex 3 is also rated at 2,000,000 hours MTBF. Intel's quality seems to be a bit lacking, though the timespans are longer than we'll probably live anyway so that may not be something that matters to most ppl.

Edit: an odd note: OCZ's actual warranty is only 3 years while Intel's is 5, though OCZ's parts are made to last longer. It is what it is i guess :/

Re-edit: lol crap i read the sata 2 specs of the Agility 3 by accident. Ignore the part about it being slower than the Intels. It isn't :/

[Slicker]

Yeah you still can't beat OCZ in my opinion. And that OCZ Agility 3 was rated at 2,000,000 hours (228 years) MTBF while the Intel's are only 1,200,000 hours (137 years). But, these Intel's that are being put on sale are of a slightly higher tier than the Agility 3 series and will be faster. The Vertex 3 series from OCZ though stomps a mudhole in these Intel SSD's, with the read and write speed up to just over 2x faster vs. Intel's 300 series. On Intel's 500 series, they improved things alot and are about even with the Vertex 3. The OCZ Vertex 3 is also rated at 2,000,000 hours MTBF. Intel's quality seems to be a bit lacking, though the timespans are longer than we'll probably live anyway so that may not be something that matters to most ppl.

Edit: an odd note: OCZ's actual warranty is only 3 years while Intel's is 5, though OCZ's parts are made to last longer. It is what it is i guess :/

I'd be curious to know how they rate them. For example, with color printers, they assume 5% color coverage on 8.5x11 paper when they quote the printer speeds, pages per minute, and pages per toner cartridge. In reality, most powerpoint presentations use 30-90% color coverage so the ppm is much much slower. Anyone know if the SSD lifespan is for continuous read/write activity or assuming "normal use" (however they define normal)? In other words, would an SSD drive work well for a database or would it die within a year? Or, are they server quality or just for home users?

Second, last I read there were two types of SSD technology and the first, while having huge speed advantages were limited to 64GB and quite expensive while the latter was slower but could handle data > 64GB. What technology do the Intel and OCZ drives use when they get to 250GB or more?

[John P. Myers]

I'd be curious to know how they rate them. For example, with color printers, they assume 5% color coverage on 8.5x11 paper when they quote the printer speeds, pages per minute, and pages per toner cartridge. In reality, most powerpoint presentations use 30-90% color coverage so the ppm is much much slower. Anyone know if the SSD lifespan is for continuous read/write activity or assuming "normal use" (however they define normal)? In other words, would an SSD drive work well for a database or would it die within a year? Or, are they server quality or just for home users?

Second, last I read there were two types of SSD technology and the first, while having huge speed advantages were limited to 64GB and quite expensive while the latter was slower but could handle data > 64GB. What technology do the Intel and OCZ drives use when they get to 250GB or more?

Yes, the key phrase here is "normal use". No idea what that is exactly and probably never will. Are any of us normal users? Highly doubtful due to the continuous download/uploading of workunits all day. It's still best to get a small SSD, say around 60GB, for the OS only. SSDs wear out when the same data segments are written to over and over, though they have built in procedures to prevent this from happening as best as possible. However, when a SSD does fail, you can still read from the failed sector, unlike a HDD where you're just screwed.

So the purpose of getting an SSD dedicated to the OS, which would only be written to once when you install it, won't fail for 137+ years (due to the natural halflife of whatever flash chips are composed of, i assume)

An SSD used like a HDD (constant reading and writing, but also equivalent size) will last about as long as a HDD, but will be faster the whole time. To make an SSD last longer than a HDD, you need to get the largest capacity one you can afford. This way, the SSD has more sectors to chose from when it writes data, meaning the sectors won't be used as often in the rotation so they don't wear out nearly as fast. SSDs keep count of how many times a sector is written to internally. After the preset limit is reached (around 10,000 writes), it will no longer write to that sector which causes your SSD capacity to shrink just a hair, but maintains 100% reliability. HDDs will just write and write until the sector fails, then you're left having to reinstall something. SSDs simply relocate the data.

Yes there are 2 different types of SSD flash memory: SLC and MLC. MLC allows higher capacities and cheapest, and is found in pretty much every consumer SSD and is what everything i said above applies to. SLC is more expensive, has lower capacities, but is very durable. SLC will likely last a lifetime even under moderate usage conditions. SLC is also less likely to have read errors than MLC, though you'll notice that OCZ and Intel both use ECC on their SSDs to correct any errors that may occur.

The only limitations for SLC SSD capacity is surface area and lithography. SLC stores a single bit per cell, while MLC stores 2, meaning whatever the largest capacity MLC SSD is, the largest SLC could be half that.

Edit: Just did some quick price comparisions. MLC is under $1/GB while SLC is around $6/GB

[Mumps]

If I remember correctly, most SSD manufacturers call 10% average a "normal" load level for a Consumer class MTBF rating. So, if your system is on 24 hours a day, and reading/writing data constantly, divide those estimated lifespans by 10. Still highly unlikely that any of us will still be using those exact same drives 13 years from now, but if 50% of them will be dead by then, let's hope it's the 50% that are lightly utilized and not in *our* systems. :)

[Mike029]

Great info. Why the steep drop off in price?

[Fire$torm]

Great info. Why the steep drop off in price?

My take is that Intel has never had anything significant in the consumer mass storage market before SSDs. And with OCZ droppings prices Intel needs to keep step.

[rgathright]

My take is that Intel has never had anything significant in the consumer mass storage market before SSDs. And with OCZ droppings prices Intel needs to keep step.

Finally, someone giving Intel competition.

It's been over 10 years since anyone had them beat without question in any product line. Just imagine what would happen if OCZ responded with even lower prices and higher speeds. Yes, I firmly believe Intel has the technology to go even cheaper and faster if forced too. They always have. Question is, who will? :-?

I am just happy that in the end our hobby benefits from all this. :cool:

[Bok]

I'd be curious to know how they rate them. For example, with color printers, they assume 5% color coverage on 8.5x11 paper when they quote the printer speeds, pages per minute, and pages per toner cartridge. In reality, most powerpoint presentations use 30-90% color coverage so the ppm is much much slower. Anyone know if the SSD lifespan is for continuous read/write activity or assuming "normal use" (however they define normal)? In other words, would an SSD drive work well for a database or would it die within a year? Or, are they server quality or just for home users?

Second, last I read there were two types of SSD technology and the first, while having huge speed advantages were limited to 64GB and quite expensive while the latter was slower but could handle data > 64GB. What technology do the Intel and OCZ drives use when they get to 250GB or more?

I use both OCZ and Intel SSD's for my stats database server, with custom replication happening many times daily. They work just great.. :)