Any reason not to get a Intel Intel X25-M Mainstream 160GB SSD?

HungryHippos

HungryHippos

HungryHippos

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Apart from cost? I've wanted an SSD for a while and I can afford one of these babies right now.

I currently have two Raptors in Raid 0 so I will probably sell those drives to reclaim some of my costs, I like the idea of having a nice silent/cool drive in my machine rather than two drives spinning up all the time (the Raptors aren't too bad for noise but my end goal is a silent PC or as close as possible, so SSD lends itself better there).

Are there any better alternative drives out there for around the same price (Intel one seems to be about £350) or is the Intel one considered the best one?
 
Yes the Intel is one of the best it's especially good at small file transfer which is very inportant for a OS drives, you won't be disapointed.
 
A fine drive. Would have got one if i could have afforded it instead of the 80gb version
 
The only reason I can think of is that Intel are planning on releasing their 25nm generation 3 X-25M before the end of the year, which will probably be a little faster and cheaper than the current models.

However, that is at least 6 months away, and if you applied that reasoning you'd never buy anything...

Matthew
 
I am a avid reader of this section as my Win 7RC is about to die and i was hoping to reinstall my (long owned at pre order price) win 7 HP onto a SSD, if nothing else i have set 128GB as the min size!

So many people seem to have regreted 64GB or 80GB drives or have raided, I will take that forward!:)
 
The intel still commands a good premium over that, but as its less bucks and meets my criteria on size, I would go for the cheaper option.

I am still resisting, as the 128GB was £200 when i first looked at it and I dont like the reasons why its gone up so much, Tech should go down not up and for me a SSD is a want not a need, if demand drops so will the price, good old economics!

Still on the fence for me, bar the min size needed! :)
 
Well guys got my X25-M 160GB SSD today and so far so good, has anyone else got the same drive and can do a benchmark test for me so I can check my drive is performing to par? :)
 
scotty365 said:
Thats not going to happen for many reasons...
Click to expand...

It'll happen eventually but not soon. Flat LCD monitors took a long time to become competitive price-wise with lumpy CRTs but they're cheap now. Solid state storage will become mainstream and cheap-as-chips (!) somewhere down the road but for the next year or so it'll remain a high tariff format.
 
Not sorted with image hosting at the moment so here's a typed version of an AS SSD bench I just did:

Seq: Read - 252.56 MB/s Write - 103.68 MB/s

4K: Read - 22.73 MB/s Write - 44.89 MB/s

4K-64Thrd: Read - 151.96 MB/s Write - 64.89 MB/s

Acc.time: Read - 0.062 ms Write - 0.095 ms

Score: Read - 200 Write - 120 Final: 424

.
 
Outpost262 said:
Not sorted with image hosting at the moment so here's a typed version of an AS SSD bench I just did:

Seq: Read - 252.56 MB/s Write - 103.68 MB/s

4K: Read - 22.73 MB/s Write - 44.89 MB/s

4K-64Thrd: Read - 151.96 MB/s Write - 64.89 MB/s

Acc.time: Read - 0.062 ms Write - 0.095 ms

Score: Read - 200 Write - 120 Final: 424

.
Click to expand...

Thanks, pretty similar to mine for the most part, though your read access times were better :)

It shows my drive is at least performing nicely though, I followed the instructions over at http://www.ocztechnologyforum.com/f...ks-Utilities-*&p=442158&viewfull=1#post442158

I noticed the drive performs slightly better under AHCI mode, though it takes a little longer during boot to initialise the AHCI mode I would prefer to wait a 10 second longer boot time to get better performance under Windows myself

AS SSD Benchmark 1.4.3645.3568
------------------------------
Name: INTEL SSDSA2M160G2GC ATA Device
Firmware: 2CV102HA
Controller: msahci
Offset: 103424 K - OK
Size: 149.05 GB
Date: 06/02/2010 23:29:58
------------------------------
Sequential:
------------------------------
Read: 255.35 MB/s
Write: 106.77 MB/s
------------------------------
4K:
------------------------------
Read: 20.70 MB/s
Write: 43.98 MB/s
------------------------------
4K-64Threads:
------------------------------
Read: 150.00 MB/s
Write: 66.03 MB/s
------------------------------
Access Times:
------------------------------
Read: 0.118 ms
Write: 0.106 ms
------------------------------
Score:
------------------------------
Read: 196
Write: 121
Total: 418
------------------------------
 
AS SSD Benchmark 1.4.3645.3568
------------------------------
Name: INTEL SSDSA2M160G2GC
Firmware: 2CV1
Controller: iaStor
Offset: 1024 K - OK
Size: 149.05 GB
Date: 07/02/2010 02:55:06
------------------------------
Sequential:
------------------------------
Read: 255.28 MB/s
Write: 106.13 MB/s
------------------------------
4K:
------------------------------
Read: 22.96 MB/s
Write: 46.96 MB/s
------------------------------
4K-64Threads:
------------------------------
Read: 151.72 MB/s
Write: 61.29 MB/s
------------------------------
Access Times:
------------------------------
Read: 0.113 ms
Write: 0.099 ms
------------------------------
Score:
------------------------------
Read: 200
Write: 119
Total: 423
------------------------------


There is a firmware update available btw
 
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gee 3000
This is the drive I've decided to get, are you just going to run your os and other programmes on it?
How have you set up your other HDs?
How was the set-up of the SSD?
Really interested to know how real-life useage is??
cheers :)

I assume this drive supports TRIM??
 
Last edited:
hitman said:
gee 3000
This is the drive I've decided to get, are you just going to run your os and other programmes on it?
How have you set up your other HDs?
How was the set-up of the SSD?
Really interested to know how real-life useage is??
cheers :)

I assume this drive supports TRIM??
Click to expand...

Yes it's not for storage, It's big enough so I can happily run Windows 7/Apps/Steam Games (those I play most anyway - others can use mklink procedure to move them to another drive if I need space).

I have two Samsung F1 1TB drives for storage at the moment, so my setup is SSD for O/S and the Samsung's set as secondary drives.

Setup was easy. Mine came boxed with a 2.5" - 3.5" cage so I just screwed it into the cage using the screws provided, then screwed that into my HDD slot in my computer case. Plugged drive into SATA port as normal on my Intel SATA controller. Changed the BIOS mode to AHCI (I don't use RAID at all) as the performance is better. Then just booted from my Windows disk and installed Windows 7, then I followed some of the tweaks from http://www.ocztechnologyforum.com/forum/showthread.php?63273-*-Windows-7-Ultimate-Tweaks-Utilities-*

Real Life usage? fast! However I had two raptors in Raid 0 before so for me the difference is not night and day (yes stuff does load quicker, but the raptors weren't sluggish and I have i7 920 and 6GB of memory anyway). But is uses less power, is quieter, and is definitely quick off the mark so for me I am happy :)

TRIM is indeed supported, though apparently not if you have them in Raid 0 for these drives. Perhaps a firmware update is needed if the drive was not manufactured recently.
 
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cheers Eulogy- some useful info for when/if I get one!
Gee3000 - I know what you mean, I'm really struggling with whether I can afford one of these or not. TBH, iF I can get away with an 80GB then I will but not sure it will be big enough
 
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