Intel X25-5

The Intel X25-1000 has been a popular choice over the last few years for PC enthusiasts and information technology has set the criterion for all desktop SSD products. Yet, at $199 for 80GB of storage even the cheapest version was besides expensive for our upkeep SSD round-up. For those looking for something a trivial more affordable Intel appear the X25-V 40GB earlier this year with an MSRP of $125. That cost afterward fell to $100 making it an fifty-fifty sweeter deal.

Controller = Intel PC29AS218A
Cache = ISSI IS42S16160D-7TLI (32MB)
Memory = Intel 29F64G08CAMDI (34nm MLC)
Read/Write = 170MB/s - 35MB/s (40GB model)

Whereas the ADATA S596 Turbo 32GB drive costs $2.56 per gigabyte the Intel X25-Five 40GB is fetching slightly less at effectually $2.50. So while the Intel drive does indeed cost a little more than, in the finish you are really getting a slightly better bargain in terms of the toll per gigabyte.

The claimed sequential read/write performance is considerably lower when compared to the ADATA S596 Turbo 32GB drive. Although as many of yous will know this is not a figure that a lot of emphasis should be placed on, the claimed write throughput of 35MB/s is quite low and so information technology will be interesting to see how the Intel X25-V 40GB stacks up.

The Intel X25-V 40GB looks very much similar the more expensive X25-Yard G2 80GB and 160GB drives from the outside. Smashing information technology open reveals that the PCB pattern is besides very much akin, as the exact same Intel PC29AS218A controller and ISSI IS42S16160D-7TLI 32MB PC133 SDRAM cache chip accept been used.

Inside are 5 Intel 29F64G08CAMDI (34nm MLC) NAND memory chips, each 8GB in chapters. The X25-One thousand drives feature 10 chips for ten channels, which means Intel's controller now only has half equally many channels to work with, and that volition inevitably issue in the X25-V existence considerably slower than the larger and more expensive X25-Thousand drives.

We have nonetheless to see how well the Intel X25-V 40GB compares to the competition, simply at to the lowest degree on newspaper we know information technology is an affordable alternative that offers pretty expert value in terms of price per gigabyte. Intel is also backing the drive with a 3 year warranty and has included a 2.5 to 3.5-inch mounting subclass in the retail package.