Intel X-25M 160GB MLC SSD
PrintIntel's killer solid state drive gets a capacity increase, but is it still the best?
Last fall, Intel slapped the solid state drive market on the back of the head with the release of the 80GB X25-M MLC drive. That drive absolutely trounced the competition with its 200MB/s read speeds, incredibly low random-access times, and best of all, no random-write stuttering or cache overflows. The first X25-M garnered a Kick Ass Award and defeated all comers in our last SSD roundup (November 2008), but the market has come a long way since then. With powerful competition from drives sporting Indilinx and Samsung controllers, can the 160GB X25-M maintain Intel’s crown?
The 160GB X25-M ships in a silvery chassis, unlike its predecessor’s black, and is 7mm tall—an included spacer accommodates 9.5mm drive bays. Intel’s kicked the flash manufacturing process down from 50nm to 34nm, and retained native SATA and Native Command Queuing from its previous iteration.
The new X25-M ships with a spacer so it can fit in 9.5mm as well as 7mm 2.5-inch drive bays.
First, the good news. The 160GB X25-M is even faster than the 80GB, offering 209MB/s sustained reads and 79.5MB/s sustained writes in our h2benchw benchmark, compared to the 80GB version’s 206MB/s and 64MB/s, respectively. Random-access reads and writes are within .01ms of the 80GB version, and Premiere Pro times are five percent faster. Oddly, though, its PCMark Vantage score is only 23,288—faster than nearly every drive but its predecessor, which amassed a cool 30K.
Unfortunately, the X25-M just isn’t the coolest kid on the block anymore. Not since we’ve seen other drives come along and smash the 100MB/s sustained-write barrier, or which feature either a Samsung or Indilinx drive controller with cache that eliminates the random-write stuttering that plagued early JM602-based drives. Both Samsung’s 256GB drive (reviewed August 2009, retailing as the Corsair P256) and Patriot’s Torqx (September 2009) nearly match X25-M’s read speeds and obliterate its sequential writes, with the Torqx and its fellow Indilinx Barefoot MLC drives (OCZ Vertex, G.Skill Falcon) offering write speeds close to 175MB/s.
The X25-M still reigns supreme in random-write times, though, with a latency of just .08ms compared to the Torqx’s .31ms. And it does so without the Indilinx controller’s 64MB of DRAM cache.
The X25-M remains a rock-solid choice for SSDs, and its read speeds and random-write response times are second to none. But in sustained-write speeds, it’s no match for the Patriot Torqx and its peers. But hey, the 160GB X25-M is $.10/GB cheaper than the Torqx, and 160GB is enough room for your OS and a dozen of your favorite games.
Intel X-25M 160GB MLC SSD
Ham
Blazing-fast reads and random writes; decent capacity. Cost per GB keeps falling.
Spam
Can't keep up in sustained writes.
8
Benchmarks
| Intel X25-M | Patriot Torqx 128GB | Intel X25-M (older one) | |
|---|---|---|---|
| Capacity | 160GB | 128GB | 80GB |
| Average Sustained Transfer Rate Read (MB/s) | 209.1 | 205.4 | 206.6 |
| Average Sustained Transfer Rate Write (MB/s) | 79.5 | 175.1 | 64.3 |
| Random Access Read (ms) | 0.13 | 0.11 | 0.12 |
| Random Access Write | 0.08 | 0.31 | 0.09 |
| Premiere Pro (sec) | 969 | 674 | 732 |
| PCMark Vantage Hard Drive | 23,288 | 21,247 | 30,322 |
Best scores are bolded. All drives were tested on our standard test bed using a 2.66GHz Intel Core 2 Quad Q6700, EVGA 680i SLI board. HDTach 3.0.1.0, h2benchw, and Premiere Pro CS3 scores were obtained in Windows XP; PCMark Vantage 2005 scores were obtained in Windows Vista Home Premium 32-bit.
More like this
Mayhemm
December 20, 2009 at 12:36am
Are you guys planning to do an updated review of this drive now that the latest firmware (02HD, I believe) has supposedly boosted sustained write speeds to 100MB/s?
Still not in the ballpark of the TorqX, but surely enough to bump this drive up to a 9 (maybe a 9 + KickAss) since sustained writes were the only drawback the drive had.
gijoewade
October 28, 2009 at 3:23pm
I was looking online and tried to price this out. I have seen multiple models:
SSDSA2MH160G2C1 and SSDSA2MH160G2R5. The first is $503 and the second is $512, at CDW (the sponsor from the article), Newegg has a bigger difference.Can anyone explain?
maddogindy
October 28, 2009 at 7:48am
I am gearing up to build a new PC. I figure Windows and all of my programs will easily fit on a 128GB SSD drive. (Files would go on 1.5TB SATA) Would I get better performance with two 64GB SSD drives in Raid 0? I mostly use Adobe Photoshop CS4 and Adobe Lightroom. Any room left on the SSD would be a scratch drive for Photoshop. I'm not a much of a gamer. Anyone?
rich5665
October 28, 2009 at 6:30am
Lets see a WD 750GB Scorpio Drive for $149.99 or the Intel 160GB X-25M for $549.00, I'll take the capacity over speed for now. When the price come down a little more then maybe I'll jump on the SSD bandwagon. Besides, if I wanted fast Speeds and great performance then I'll use my Desktop not my laptop.
EthicSlave
October 28, 2009 at 5:12am
Installing a game in excess of 15GB (WoW). Updating a game such as the later 300-700MB. Sustained writes may be a mere factor that only happen every so often. Yet it is enough to drop drive benchmarks in pcmark and that sir is enough for me to say that its a concerning factor.
EDIT
In a drive from which you would expect high performance, you should also expect the ability to thrash through video editing purposes and image editing purposes. What holds this drive back here? random WRITE access...
mesiah
October 27, 2009 at 9:44pm
Sustained write speed should not be the deciding factor of buying an SSD. 90% of hard drive activity is spent on small random reads and writes, and to a lesser extent large reads (loading game levels and such.) Sustained writes generally don't happen very often unless you are copying large files. If you are ripping a DVD or something along those lines even standard spinning media is going to outpace the encoding process. For all intents and purposes for the average person, the intel drive is still the best, the the indilinx drives just slightly trailing. The samsung controllers still struggle with random reads and writes. I wouldn't put them in the same category as the intel and indilinx controllers which are clearly a cut above the rest.
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