Intel 520 Solid State Drive SSD 180GB $130 120GB $100 at BB

Wow, this is the lowest price I've seen so far on these SSD's. Just ordered two 180's for store p/u. Can't wait to see just how bad they are in a stripe array.

I think 520 series are older than 330 and 335 series. However, 520 gears more toward enterprise class applications.

Here is a quote from AnandTech site regarding 520 vs 330

" The 330 and 520 are very similar drives. The 330's primary differentiation comes from its use of cheaper, lower endurance MLC NAND. I'll get to the math behind why this isn't an issue at all for most users shortly. Conceptually, the 330 vs. the 520 is very similar to Kingston's HyperX 3K vs. regular HyperX drive. Just like with frequency binning for CPUs, there's endurance binning for NAND. Lower endurance parts are more plentiful (and thus cheaper) while the highest endurance parts will be sold for a premium (e.g. MLC-HET). If Intel does its job right, most of the stuff in the middle should be very good. And if it does its job really well, even the lower endurance parts should be more than good enough.

Intel's SSD 330 also carries a different firmware version from the 520: 300i vs. 400i. The firmware changes are likely minor in nature, however one major change is the loss of Intel's E2/E3/E4 SMART attributes for quick endurance testing. As I mentioned in our look at Intel SSDs in the enterprise, you can use these attributes to determine write amplification and estimate NAND longevity of a given workload. Intel views these as enterprise features, and with the 330's focus exclusively as a client drive it loses the features. You still have an accurate count of total host writes vs. NAND writes, as well as Intel's media wear indicator that lets you know what percentage of p/e cycles you have exhausted. I suspect this is more of Intel's famous forced segmentation at work rather than true delineation between client and datacenter drives. Depending on the server and workload, the 330 could be just fine."

i've been looking for one of these. thanks op!

It's a fast drive. I got a 120 for less from Newegg Business a bit ago. I'm happy.

does anyone know if this is the retail package with the install kit?

Nyago123 said:   520 Series = Toggle NAND. If you don't know what that means, it probably doesn't matter to you and you can leave these drives for those of us for whom it does matter.

In for two (one online, one in store pickup) to expand my Hyper-V RAID array.

I don't think the 520 has Toggle NAND. According to the review you linked to, as well as Tom's Hardware, it has Synchronous NAND, although the review states that the speeds are very close to the Toggle NAND.

In any case, this is a great deal. I'm trying to decide between this deal or other SSDs in the 250GB range.

I picked up two of these for a RAID 0 configuration:

http://www.rwlabs.com/article.php?cat=&id=619&pagenumber=1

fatxman said:   Is this the 7mm version?

Its 7mm drive with 2.5 mm spacecer screwed in on drive. you can easily remove the srews and spacer to install in 7mm bay. but that might void warranty???

cohenfive said:   does anyone know if this is the retail package with the install kit?

Yes, these are retail drives, not OEM. They come in a box with a desktop installation kit.

Just installed mine. DAYUM this thing is fast!

did anyone get one of these to confirm they are retail drives with install kit? i've seen both oem and retail posted here. thx.

ams30 said:   cohenfive said:   did anyone get one of these to confirm they are retail drives with install kit? i've seen both oem and retail posted here. thx.

I got mine B&M so yes it was retail. It has a bracket inside, but wouldn't consider it a mounting kit. Good enough to install it though.

so it came in the retail intel blue box that says 'includes deskop install kit'? is ghosting software included or do you just download it from intel?

xkxrome0ox said:   i was going to wait until a high end 240-256GB came down to this price range ... but all the positive responses convinced me to get the 520 series 180GB now
not that i need help spending more money... but thank you all for the input
Yeah, I've been wanting to jump on the SSD bandwagon myself since they first came out but didn't because I wanted to wait for the technology to mature a bit and for prices to come down to more reasonable and affordable levels before taking the plunge. I've had my eye on the 520 series for some time now due to all the good things that I've read about them and have just been waiting for a good deal on them. This deal couldn't have come at a better time because I just had two hard drives die on me in the past month. I tell ya...I'm done with traditional hard drives.

Looks like the sale is still going on. I'm surprised they haven't sold out yet.

jwsm said:   Looks like the sale is still going on. I'm surprised they haven't sold out yet.
i was worried about order cancellation and what not
but got my shipping confirmation today

Finally had time to install the drives and set up my stripe array. Windows Experience Index subscore for the hard disk jumped from a score of 5.9(before on a single WD 500GB hdd) to a perfect score of 7.9! Haven't had a chance to really put the system through its paces yet but I definitely notice a difference. System now is very responsive with absolutely no lag whatsoever. Will be doing more testing over the weekend.....

I've had very positive experience with Intel SSD so far: fast, reliable, and durable. I'm still using the 80GB drive that I bought 3 years ago for ~$250. Now this is time to upgrade with larger size and less money. Thanks OP!