Intel 80 GB X25-M (50 nm) Solid State Drive Review

Adrian Wong · 26th Sep 2009, 01:52 AM

Intel is one of the world's leading manufacturers of solid state drives (SSDs) and NAND flash memory chips - the very foundation of solid state drives and USB flash drives. They currently offer three lines of solid state drives :

Intel X25-E Extreme SSDs

- Extreme performance and reliability for servers, storage and workstations

Intel X25-M Mainstream SSDs

- High-performance 2.5" SSDs for laptops

Intel X18-M Mainstream SSDs

- High-performance 1.8" SSDs for netbooks

The Intel Mainstream series of 2.5" SSDs feature a native SATA interface with support for Native Command Queueing (up to 32 concurrent operations ), and an advanced architecture that employs 10 parallel NAND flash channels to deliver very fast transfer rates while utilizing multi-level cell NAND flash memory to reduce cost and increase storage capacity. To improve reliability, these mainstream SSDs use a proprietary write-leveling algorithm to spread the writes over the entire drive.

There are actually two variants of the X25-M mainstream SSD - the first-generation X25-M which is based on 50 nm NAND flash memory, and the second-generation X25-M based on 34 nm NAND flash memory. Today, we will be taking a look at the first-generation X25-M mainstream SSD, one with a storage capacity of 80 GB.

Link : Intel 80 GB X25-M (50 nm) Solid State Drive Review

Chai · 26th Sep 2009, 08:26 AM

Oh... didn't know they have X18-M model. Is this the second revision of X25-M?

I just noticed something lacking the review, there's no sequential write speed test.

Adrian Wong · 27th Sep 2009, 12:22 PM

Quote:

Originally Posted by Chai

Oh... didn't know they have X18-M model. Is this the second revision of X25-M?

I just noticed something lacking the review, there's no sequential write speed test.

No, this is the first gen but it's supposed to be as fast as the second-gen which is based on 34 nm NAND flash.

Sequential write? Yes there is - in the IO Meter results. The sequential write (and read) results are in red.

Chai · 28th Sep 2009, 07:51 AM

Oh I thought WinMark has sequential write too.

Adrian Wong · 29th Sep 2009, 01:23 AM

Quote:

Originally Posted by Chai

Oh I thought WinMark has sequential write too.

No, it doesn't. HD Tach can do that, but unfortunately, HD Tach cannot run on Windows Vista. So we can only test using IO Meter.

26th Sep 2009, 01:52 AM	#1 (permalink)
Adrian Wong Da Boss Join Date: 10 Oct 2002 Location: In front of my ASUS F8V notebook! Posts: 32,299 Reputation: 3574 Rep Power: 75	Intel 80 GB X25-M (50 nm) Solid State Drive Review Intel is one of the world's leading manufacturers of solid state drives (SSDs) and NAND flash memory chips - the very foundation of solid state drives and USB flash drives. They currently offer three lines of solid state drives : Intel X25-E Extreme SSDs - Extreme performance and reliability for servers, storage and workstations Intel X25-M Mainstream SSDs - High-performance 2.5" SSDs for laptops Intel X18-M Mainstream SSDs - High-performance 1.8" SSDs for netbooks The Intel Mainstream series of 2.5" SSDs feature a native SATA interface with support for Native Command Queueing (up to 32 concurrent operations ), and an advanced architecture that employs 10 parallel NAND flash channels to deliver very fast transfer rates while utilizing multi-level cell NAND flash memory to reduce cost and increase storage capacity. To improve reliability, these mainstream SSDs use a proprietary write-leveling algorithm to spread the writes over the entire drive. There are actually two variants of the X25-M mainstream SSD - the first-generation X25-M which is based on 50 nm NAND flash memory, and the second-generation X25-M based on 34 nm NAND flash memory. Today, we will be taking a look at the first-generation X25-M mainstream SSD, one with a storage capacity of 80 GB. Link : Intel 80 GB X25-M (50 nm) Solid State Drive Review __________________ Dr. Adrian Wong Tech ARP \| Blog @ Tech ARP \| The Free Trade Zone DYKT : The only offshore account I have is at the sand bank? We need PROGRAMMERS and TECHNICAL WRITERS! Contact us if you are a hot shot programmer or technical writer! My items for sale : 50x SD Card \| Memory Stick PRO \| Cyclone Energy Saver \| Seiko SS watch \| Tiger/Carlsberg beer jugs \| Travel Speakers \| Motorola V600 \| Nokia N90 SOLD! \| New Lowepro Mini Trekker AW Other items for sale @ the FTZ : Zalman CNPS9500 LED @ $20 \| Zalman CNPS7700 Cu @ $20 \| Zalman CNPS7000 Cu @ $20 \| Swarovski bracelet watches \| Dell 17" LCD \| Hi-Fi speakers \| English DIVX movies \| HP LaserJet toners! \| Office chairs Last edited by Chai : 26th Sep 2009 at 08:03 AM.

26th Sep 2009, 08:26 AM	#2 (permalink)
Chai Administrator Join Date: 6 Oct 2002 Location: Maranello Posts: 27,884 Reputation: 4630 Rep Power: 81	Oh... didn't know they have X18-M model. Is this the second revision of X25-M? I just noticed something lacking the review, there's no sequential write speed test. __________________ Chai (Contributor & Forum Admin) http://www.techarp.com/

28th Sep 2009, 07:51 AM	#4 (permalink)
Chai Administrator Join Date: 6 Oct 2002 Location: Maranello Posts: 27,884 Reputation: 4630 Rep Power: 81	Oh I thought WinMark has sequential write too. __________________ Chai (Contributor & Forum Admin) http://www.techarp.com/

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