Intel 520 Series 240GB Solid State Drive Review

When this drive first came in we said that we had high expectations of it based on Intel’s technical abilities and the performance of their older 320 series SSD, and to say the least we are not disappointed.

With the SandForce controller paired with Intel’s own 25nm NAND flash memory, the drive has the all the tools necessary to capably handle huge sets of data on a constant basis. During our testing we found the data throughput to the drive was very consistent and running our tests over and over to ensure there was no spikes or dips in speed also showed the rock solid performance of the SandForce controller working its magic.

When we look over the benchmark results we can see from ATTO that the drive really does have the ability to pump through the data and on both read and write speeds, the drive went over and above its rated speeds by at least 6MB/s – very impressive indeed. In the real world tests, where we typically see lower write speeds, both Crystal Disk Mark and AS SSD came back with very respectable read and write speeds of close to 500MB/s and 300Mb/s respectively.

In terms of comparing this drive to others out there on the market, it has put itself ahead in the benchmarking results and this along with the aforementioned five year warranty gives the 520 series SSDs a bold selling point. These selling points and there’s no beating about the bush about this, come at a price – and quite a price it is.  With the 240Gb model that we have here coming in at a whopping £406.28, it is by no means a cheap drive at that. If this price tag is a bit too much to handle then Intel do have smaller versions of the 520 series, starting with a 60Gb model for a more manageable £114.72.

Going with the steep price, nearly all of them are the most expensive option for their size, but what we have to reiterate, is that if you want the best and nothing else but the best, then you must be prepared to part with a sizeable chunk of hard earned cash. Intel put each of them through a rigorous testing procedure and therefore their reliability is top of the board and the five year warranties back this. If the heavy price is too daunting though, there are other options that are available with close performance ratings, but in some cases, the difference in price is marginal and some of those will not be able withstand the constant data throughput across the entire drive without a drop in performance – this being the point of a high performance drive such as the 520 series from Intel.