Intel® Solid-State Drive 320 Series

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dhanson865
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Intel® Solid-State Drive 320 Series

Post by dhanson865 » Tue Mar 22, 2011 10:38 am

Performance tests of the retail product should be showing up any day now. EXPreview.com bought a retail unit in China and have a short preview with internal photos.

See http://www.silentpcreview.com/news-2011-03-22.htm and http://en.expreview.com/2011/03/22/excl ... 15541.html for starters.

I expect reviews will be popping up all over the place as NDAs and retail availability allow but it seems to be happening before the Mid April time frame we previously thought it would be.

Eunos
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Re: Intel® Solid-State Drive 320 Series

Post by Eunos » Tue Mar 22, 2011 6:00 pm

The long-awaited G3 at last. I look forward to the reviews as this is potentially a real game-changer - not because performance is going to break any benchmarks, but because the biggest mainstream concern with SSDs (price/capacity) is going to be tackled head-on. The irony of this is that pricing will be even more keenly anticipated than the reviews...

Tephras
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Re: Intel® Solid-State Drive 320 Series

Post by Tephras » Wed Mar 23, 2011 12:22 am

Where I live prices have recently started to appear among retailers - price/capacity is pretty much the same as X25-M drives.

CTT
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Re: Intel® Solid-State Drive 320 Series

Post by CTT » Wed Mar 23, 2011 3:38 am


dkslim
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Re: Intel® Solid-State Drive 320 Series

Post by dkslim » Wed Mar 23, 2011 4:15 am

What the... this is SLOWER than the Intel G2...
"While in 4K random read/write test,its performance was not so good,and the read/write speed was 22.53MB/s and 46.83MB/s,even lower than that of X25-M"

And the write speed is nowhere near the advertised speed of 160mb/s.

I waited for 5 months for this?

CTT
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Re: Intel® Solid-State Drive 320 Series

Post by CTT » Wed Mar 23, 2011 5:50 am

The sample in the review is the smallest version (80GB); they'll be available in sizes up to 600GB.
Higher capacity will bring higher speeds (at least for sequential writes).

dhanson865
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Re: Intel® Solid-State Drive 320 Series

Post by dhanson865 » Wed Mar 23, 2011 5:59 am

dkslim wrote:What the... this is SLOWER than the Intel G2...
"While in 4K random read/write test,its performance was not so good,and the read/write speed was 22.53MB/s and 46.83MB/s,even lower than that of X25-M"

And the write speed is nowhere near the advertised speed of 160mb/s.

I waited for 5 months for this?
25nm flash is faster than 34nm flash BUT you use less of it to make the same capacity drive. This means a 80GB to 80GB comparison will always favor the drive with more chips. In practical terms you'll have to buy a higher capacity drive to beat the speed of the previous generation. So comparing 80GB to 80GB is interesting in one way but doesn't tell us anything we couldn't predict. A proper comparison would be to benchmark each capacity offered and let you compare it to the old drives. Then as prices drop on the 25nm drives the comparisons would change to eventually favor the new drives.

Unfortunately the EXPreview doesn't tell us about performance as it scales with capacity on the 120GB, 160GB, 300GB models. We know that the 80GB has only half the flash chips on the PCB so it'll be the 160GB or larger to get full performance. I'm only guessing but I think the replacement table would be something like

Code: Select all

X25-M 34nm   320 Series 25nm
-----         40GB
.40GB         80GB
.80GB        120GB
120GB        160GB
160GB        300GB
-----        600GB
With the 120GB 25nm being faster on reads but slower on writes than the 80GB 34nm. Of course if it were half the cost/GB no one would complain. They'd just buy a higher capacity drive and enjoy the increased read speeds.

As to your comment about advertised speed of 160mb/s, Intel hasn't advertised these drives at all yet. There is no official specs released on the 320 Series. In case I missed it please do post a URL showing official specs for these drives.

dkslim
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Re: Intel® Solid-State Drive 320 Series

Post by dkslim » Wed Mar 23, 2011 4:56 pm

Your theory is great, but the problem is Intel's charging the same price (if not more) for the new G3 compared to the G2. If Intel is selling the G3 for half the price of the G2 at same capacities, then I'd be very happy, but that's not the case.

As for the advertised write speed of 160mb/s, it was on some news sites late last year (around September), they reported that Intel claimed a write speed of 160mb/s on their new G3 SSDs.

dhanson865
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Re: Intel® Solid-State Drive 320 Series

Post by dhanson865 » Wed Mar 23, 2011 6:10 pm

As to pricing I'm right there with you in that if they charge the same per GB I won't be happy with that. But the drives haven't even been officially released and they'll be around for one to three years on the market so I'll continue to adjust my view of them as facts develop.
dkslim wrote:As for the advertised write speed of 160mb/s, it was on some news sites late last year (around September), they reported that Intel claimed a write speed of 160mb/s on their new G3 SSDs.
Yes and the tested unit is not the one that would achieve that speed. You have to buy the highest capacity drive in the series to get the maximum advertised speed.

It's the same dirty secret with the OCZ SSDs and the Crucial SSDs and every other brand. Take these to examples

Corsair Performance 3
480MB/s read, 320MB/s write for 256GB model
410MB/s read, 210MB/s write for 128GB model
365MB/s read, 110MB/s write for 64GB model

C400 Performance to compare vs above
415MB/s read, 260MB/s write for 512GB model
415MB/s read, 260MB/s write for 256GB model
415MB/s read, 175MB/s write for 128GB model
415MB/s read, 95MB/s write for 64GB model

The Corsair loses speed on reads and writes as the capacity drops. The C400 loses speed only on writes and only when capacity drops below 256GB.

Where will Intel 320 Series stop dropping/gaining speed as the capacity changes? I don't know but I'm guessing based on the picture of the 80GB PCB that the 160, 300, and 600GB will all have the same performance unless Intel throttles one or more capacities. Assuming 160 is the max speed there will be a drop in speed for each capacity below that with 160 being faster than 120 being faster than 80.

By comparison lets add some other older SSDs

Manufacturer specs on maximum sequential write speeds compared to Actual test results for Sequential Write speeds:

Code: Select all

Drive           Spec    Test
X25-M G2 160GB 100MB/s 101.2
X25-M G2 120GB 100MB/s ~101 same as 160GB within margin of error
X25-M G2  80GB  70MB/s  81.6
X25-V G2  40GB  35MB/s  37.7

C300 256GB     215MB/s 203.0
C300 128GB     140MB/s 131.1
C300  64GB      70MB/s  71.0

Corsair F120   275MB/s 136.6 or 214.8
Corsair  F40   270MB/s  72.5 or 210.4
In those cases the tested drives from Corsair and Crucial tested worse than advertised and Intel tested better than advertised. The catch is we don't have per capacity specs for the 80GB 320 Series SSD to know if it is testing equal to, above, or below advertised specs.

So yes the quick review of the 80GB model doesn't meet the leaked specs for the entire line of 320 SSDs. That isn't a surprise. Just wait a few days until someone reviews the 300GB model or the 160GB model and see how much faster it is or wait for Intel to post the official specs and compare those.

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Re: Intel® Solid-State Drive 320 Series

Post by Tephras » Wed Mar 23, 2011 6:23 pm

dhanson865 wrote:There is no official specs released on the 320 Series. In case I missed it please do post a URL showing official specs for these drives.
No official specifications yet, closest thing are sequential read/write numbers published by a Taiwanese retailer as reported here.

dhanson865
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Re: Intel® Solid-State Drive 320 Series

Post by dhanson865 » Thu Mar 24, 2011 5:51 am

Tephras wrote:
dhanson865 wrote:There is no official specs released on the 320 Series. In case I missed it please do post a URL showing official specs for these drives.
No official specifications yet, closest thing are sequential read/write numbers published by a Taiwanese retailer as reported here.
Good catch. I hadn't seen those yet.

Code: Select all

Intel 320 Series       Capacity Seq. read       Seq. write
SSDSA2CW600G310         600 GB  same as 300GB   same as 300GB
SSDSA2CW300G310         300 GB  270 MB/s        205 MB/s

SSDSA2CW160G310         160 GB  270 MB/s        165 MB/s
SSDSA2CW120G310         120 GB  270 MB/s        130 MB/s
SSDSA2CW080G310          80 GB  270 MB/s         90 MB/s

SSDSA2CT040G310          40 GB  200 MB/s         45 MB/s
It still makes me wonder why they made the 40GB version. It performs so poorly compared to the competition at this capacity. Sandforce is the only competition at exactly 40GB and they have the compression trick to get much higher speeds. I guess if they push the price down aggressively I could see buying one for a system I didn't use frequently. But there would have to be a serious price gap between it and all the 64GB drives on the market for me to even consider it (I'd take one of the 64GB drives over the 40GB sandforce any day).

And comparing the specs of the 80GB version to the EXPreview we have

270MB/s read claimed and 280MB/s read in ATTO Disk Benchmark, 281 MB/s in Crystal Disk Mark
90 MB/s write claimed and 92MB/s write in ATTO Disk Benchmark, 94.7 MB/s in Crystal Disk Mark

So the claimed vs tested numbers seem about right.

Reads on the 80GB and above are being throttled by the 3GB/s bandwidth limit. Which is not a bad thing. Just shows how much better than a hard drive a SSD can be.

Given that, we can say that the fastest of the X25-M G2 drives had a write speed of 100MB/s and the Intel 320 Series of the same capacity promises roughly 50% faster sequential writes (165 MB/s). Comparing the 300GB 320 Series to the 160GB X-25M G2 the sequential write speed is claimed to be twice as fast (205 MB/s vs 100 MB/s).

Random writes won't be that much faster and it'll be the random write speed that I look at to decide which models to compare and it will play a large part in my price/performance comparison.

Now I'm not rich so I can't just buy a ton of drives for the fun of it but I can imagine why higher capacity drives with faster flash might be a plus for someone with the money to burn. And if the price drops I'd be happy to use any of the 320 Series drives that turns out to be faster than the 80GB X25-M in all tests. Since the 80GB 320 Series doesn't fit that bill that only leaves the 120, 160, 300, and 600. Still plenty of choices if the pricing gets down a bit.

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Re: Intel® Solid-State Drive 320 Series

Post by oz_smurf » Thu Mar 24, 2011 4:34 pm

dhanson865 wrote: Random writes won't be that much faster and it'll be the random write speed that I look at to decide which models to compare and it will play a large part in my price/performance comparison.
Sounds like a good idea as random write speed does appear to be the aspect which has deteriorated compared to the X25-M series drive of the same capacity.
dhanson865 wrote: Now I'm not rich so I can't just buy a ton of drives for the fun of it but I can imagine why higher capacity drives with faster flash might be a plus for someone with the money to burn. And if the price drops I'd be happy to use any of the 320 Series drives that turns out to be faster than the 80GB X25-M in all tests. Since the 80GB 320 Series doesn't fit that bill that only leaves the 120, 160, 300, and 600. Still plenty of choices if the pricing gets down a bit.
I think the price/GB is going to have to be significantly lower for the 320 series drives in order to provide at least comparable performance in all tests at the same price. For example, if the 120GB 320 (G3) model displays comparable or superior performance to the 80GB X25-M (G2) model in all tests, the price/GB of the 120GB 320 drive would need to be 33% lower. Not that the 320 series is likely to launch at such a discount but hopefully it will fall to that level with time.

dhanson865
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Re: Intel® Solid-State Drive 320 Series

Post by dhanson865 » Sat Mar 26, 2011 3:18 pm

SSDSA2CW080G310

wait a second, if those are specs for the 320 series why do the part numbers have 310 in them instead of 320?

Tephras
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Re: Intel® Solid-State Drive 320 Series

Post by Tephras » Sat Mar 26, 2011 4:45 pm

The last two numbers/letters in the product code represent the packaging; K5=Reseller Box, B5=Retail Box, 10=Brown Box.

Eunos
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Re: Intel® Solid-State Drive 320 Series

Post by Eunos » Sun Mar 27, 2011 6:04 pm

There were rumours that the 320 would be officially announced today, March 28. Granted I'm in a different time zone but still, the tech sites seem to have been quiet thus far.

dhanson865
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Re: Intel® Solid-State Drive 320 Series

Post by dhanson865 » Mon Mar 28, 2011 3:38 pm

Eunos wrote:There were rumours that the 320 would be officially announced today, March 28. Granted I'm in a different time zone but still, the tech sites seem to have been quiet thus far.
Plenty of reviews unfortunately someone decided to start a new thread instead of just posting the link(s) in this one.

http://www.anandtech.com/show/4244/intel-ssd-320-review is one.

Unfortunately they only sent out 300GB drives for review so it'll be a while before we get 160GB, 120GB, 80GB, 40GB test results.

We do have official specs now and they are slightly different than the leaked version.

http://download.intel.com/design/flash/nand/325152.pdf
http://download.intel.com/design/flash/nand/325212.pdf

Code: Select all

Maximum Sustained Sequential Read and Write Bandwidth
Intel SSD 320 Series
Capacity                      40  80 120 160 300 600
Sequential Read (up to) MB/s 200 270 270 270 270 270
Sequential Write (up to) MB/s 45  90 130 165 205 220

Maximum Sustained Sequential Read and Write Bandwidth
Cap  Read Write
.40  200   45
_80  270   90
120  270  130
160  270  165
300  270  205
600  270  220

dhanson865
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Re: Intel® Solid-State Drive 320 Series

Post by dhanson865 » Mon Mar 28, 2011 3:45 pm

I'm seeing pricing on google products including amazon, superbiiz, and others (and in other countries where I can't easily read the page)
SSDSA2CT040G3K5 = 40GB ~$110
SSDSA2CW080G3K5 = 80GB ~$???
SSDSA2CW120G3K5 = 120GB ~$250
SSDSA2CW160G3K5 = 160GB ~$375
SSDSA2CW300G3K5 = 300GB ~$565
SSDSA2CW600G3K5 = 600GB ~$????

I know the 600GB will be over $1000 but I'm not sure by how much.

Code: Select all

X25-M 34nm     320 Series 25nm
-----            40GB  45MB/s
.40GB  35MB/s    80GB  90MB/s
_80GB  70MB/s   120GB 130MB/s
120GB 100MB/s   160GB 165MB/s
160GB 100MB/s   300GB 205MB/s
-----           600GB 220MB/s
As an example the 120GB 320 series has 30% faster sequential writes and 13% faster sequential reads but slower random writes. If you want it to be faster all the way around you'd want to step up to the 160GB 320 series vs the 120GB X-25M where the improvement is 65% faster sequential writes, the same 13% faster reads, and basically a wash (nearly equal) on random writes (but with 40GB extra capacity, improved reliability, and encryption thrown in). So the question becomes what are the street prices for the 120GB X25-m, 120GB 320 Series, and 160GB 320 Series?

Right now I can get the x25-m at $208 so I'd want the 320 Series to be more like $210 for the 120GB and $290 or less for the 160GB. But I'm a cheapskate. Obviously Intel is trying to sell these on sequential speeds and reliability (and other features) and hoping no one will complain about the random write speed.

So long as we aren't talking about the silly 40GB version with it's insanely low random writes I'd probably be willing to buy the 320 Series over the X-25M if the price was in line with the $1.75/GB of the X-25M 120GB. I'd want it to be cheaper but I'd be happy enough if it gave me all the other improvements and stayed price competitive with the mid range drives.

ces
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Re: Intel® Solid-State Drive 320 Series

Post by ces » Mon Mar 28, 2011 8:20 pm

"Intel SSD 320 prices, based on 1000-unit quantities, are as follows: 40GB at $89; 80GB at $159; 120GB at $209; 160GB at $289; 300GB at $529 and 600GB at $1069. All models include a limited 3-year warranty from Intel." Xbits
http://www.xbitlabs.com/news/storage/di ... rives.html

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Re: Intel® Solid-State Drive 320 Series

Post by CA_Steve » Mon Mar 28, 2011 9:09 pm

@ 120GB range, the C300 still seems to be the better choice.

oz_smurf
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Re: Intel® Solid-State Drive 320 Series

Post by oz_smurf » Mon Mar 28, 2011 11:54 pm

dhanson865 wrote: Right now I can get the x25-m at $208 so I'd want the 320 Series to be more like $210 for the 120GB and $290 or less for the 160GB. But I'm a cheapskate. Obviously Intel is trying to sell these on sequential speeds and reliability (and other features) and hoping no one will complain about the random write speed.

So long as we aren't talking about the silly 40GB version with it's insanely low random writes I'd probably be willing to buy the 320 Series over the X-25M if the price was in line with the $1.75/GB of the X-25M 120GB. I'd want it to be cheaper but I'd be happy enough if it gave me all the other improvements and stayed price competitive with the mid range drives.
The official pricing (per 1000 units) and street prices (from Amazon) are now available:

Code: Select all

Capacity	Model Number	Official Price Off_P/GB	Street Price St_Price/GB
.40GB	SSDSA2CT040G3B5	$89	         $2.23	   $127.29	    $3.18
.80GB	SSDSA2CW080G3B5	$159	        $1.99	   $192.56	    $2.41
120GB	SSDSA2CW120G3B5	$209	        $1.74	   $237.74	    $1.98
160GB	SSDSA2CW160G3B5	$289	        $1.81	   $313.05	    $1.96
300GB	SSDSA2CW300G3B5	$529	        $1.76	   $538.98	    $1.80
600GB	SSDSA2CW600G3B5	$1,069     	 $1.78	 $1,041.04	    $1.74
So while it looks as though your wish of <$210 for the 120GB and <$290 for the 160GB models has been fulfilled based on the official prices, the street prices are currently inflated, particularly for the smaller capacity models and with the exception of the 600GB model.

It should be interesting to see how SSD prices evolves over the next few months as all of the next generation drives are released.

dhanson865
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Re: Intel® Solid-State Drive 320 Series

Post by dhanson865 » Tue Mar 29, 2011 4:51 am

oz_smurf wrote:The official pricing (per 1000 units) and street prices (from Amazon) are now available:

Code: Select all

Capacity	Model Number	Official Price Off_P/GB	Street Price St_Price/GB
.40GB	SSDSA2CT040G3B5	$89	         $2.23	   $127.29	    $3.18
.80GB	SSDSA2CW080G3B5	$159	        $1.99	   $192.56	    $2.41
120GB	SSDSA2CW120G3B5	$209	        $1.74	   $237.74	    $1.98
160GB	SSDSA2CW160G3B5	$289	        $1.81	   $313.05	    $1.96
300GB	SSDSA2CW300G3B5	$529	        $1.76	   $538.98	    $1.80
600GB	SSDSA2CW600G3B5	$1,069     	 $1.78	 $1,041.04	    $1.74
So while it looks as though your wish of <$210 for the 120GB and <$290 for the 160GB models has been fulfilled based on the official prices, the street prices are currently inflated, particularly for the smaller capacity models and with the exception of the 600GB model.

It should be interesting to see how SSD prices evolves over the next few months as all of the next generation drives are released.
Interesting but I sure wish they didn't do this B5 is basically the same as K5 stuff.

SSDSA2CT040G3K5 = 40GB = SSDSA2CT040G3B5
SSDSA2CW080G3K5 = 80GB = SSDSA2CW080G3B5
SSDSA2CW120G3K5 = 120GB = SSDSA2CW120G3B5
SSDSA2CW160G3K5 = 160GB = SSDSA2CW160G3B5
SSDSA2CW300G3K5 = 300GB = SSDSA2CW300G3B5
SSDSA2CW600G3K5 = 600GB = SSDSA2CW600G3B5

Per Tephras K5=Reseller Box, B5=Retail Box but does that mean anything to the consumer or can I blindly check the prices on both and buy the cheaper one with no practical difference?

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Re: Intel® Solid-State Drive 320 Series

Post by Tephras » Tue Mar 29, 2011 10:30 pm

Amazon sells both B5 and K5 of the 300GB and 600GB drives, the smaller drives are only available as B5. The difference between the 300GB/600GB B5 and K5, as listed in the product details at Amazon, is that the former has more accessories included in the box; Also includes a notebook install kit: USB to SATA cable, protective sleeve and screwdriver. And, despite this, B5 cost less than K5.

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Re: Intel® Solid-State Drive 320 Series

Post by dhanson865 » Wed Mar 30, 2011 5:59 am

Tephras wrote:Amazon sells both B5 and K5 of the 300GB and 600GB drives, the smaller drives are only available as B5. The difference between the 300GB/600GB B5 and K5, as listed in the product details at Amazon, is that the former has more accessories included in the box; Also includes a notebook install kit: USB to SATA cable, protective sleeve and screwdriver. And, despite this, B5 cost less than K5.
Not sure if you meant Amazon doesn't have the smaller drives as K5 or if you really thought that there is no K5 variant of the lower capacities.

FWIW I see more than 10 stores listing SSDSA2CT040G3K5 right now by way of Google Products.

On the 80GB I find one listing for the b5 and 6 listings for the K5.

But if all that is different is included accessories I suppose I'll have to search for both and list the cheaper of the two when I do a price update.

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Re: Intel® Solid-State Drive 320 Series

Post by Tephras » Thu Mar 31, 2011 4:25 pm

I meant drives sold by Amazon, but I just saw that they now also sell the smaller drives as K5.

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