Basically, is there any reason not to go for the Intel 600p? The 950/960 Samsungs seem very poor value and the SATA drives aren't much cheaper
Anandtech said:The Intel SSD 600p is intended to be the most mainstream PCIe SSD yet without the hefty price premium that previous PCIe SSDs have carried relative to SATA SSDs. Its performance needs to be evaluated in the context of its price and intended market, both of which are quite different from that of products like the Samsung 960 Pro and 960 EVO. The more appropriate standard to compare against is the Samsung 850 EVO.
Even with our expectations thus lowered, the Intel SSD 600p fails to measure up. But this isn't a simple case of a budget drive that turns out to be far slower than its specifications would imply. The SSD 600p does offer peak performance that is as high as promised. The trouble is that it only provides that performance in a narrow range of circumstances, and most of our usual benchmarks go far beyond that and show the 600p at its worst.
The SSD 600p is completely unsuitable for a database server, but at its worst is is only as bad as a budget SATA SSD, not a dying hard drive. Ordinary interactive desktop usage provides the SSD 600p plenty of idle time to clean up and the 600p will perform better than any SATA SSD. Even when the 600p is subjected to an unrealistically intense sustained write load, its stutters are very brief and in between it catches up very quickly with bursts of very high performance. In spite of its problems, the SSD 600p managed a steady-state random write speed higher than almost all consumer SATA SSDs.
The Intel SSD 600p would be a bad choice for a user who regularly shuffles around tens of gigabytes of data. On paper however, it offers great performance for light workloads. The problem is that for workloads light enough to never expose the 600p's flaws, even a slower and cheaper SATA SSD is plenty fast and the 600p's advantages would be difficult to feel (bar installation in a smaller form factor).
I think it depends on your m/b but I've been looking at the Intels as they seem good value, have you checked out the WD ones?
So it seems to be recommended over the SATA drives at the same price point (which on OcUK it is) but nowhere near as fast as the Samsungs which are knocking on the door of twice the £/GB.
Do you mean the ones that were just announced? Is there any word on price, performance, and availability?