Intel SSD 525 Review: Five mSATA Drives, From 30 To 240 GB

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Intel has a new family of mSATA-based SSDs powered by SandForce's second-gen controller. Dubbed the SSD 525, we have all five capacities in our lab. Can the promise of strong performance, 5,000 P/E cycles, and a five-year warranty make up for high prices?

Results: Comparative 4 KB Random Performance

While desktop hard drives tend to be faster than 2.5" disks, you aren't inherently penalized by mSATA compared to larger SSDs. The 240 GB SSD 525 is proof of that. Compared to some of the 2.5" competition, it does really well (this despite its older controller). Fast flash and the newer LLKi firmware help keep the SSD 525 out of the slow lane. 

Random 4 KB Read Performance

Although we're helping it along with compressible data, the 240 GB SSD 525 ranks next-to-last, besting only Crucial's m4. The 4 KB random read potential of newer drives is staggering; the top contenders approach 100,000 IOPS. Intel's flagship approaches 250 MB/s at QD32, but performance at lower queue depths is definitely more important in client environments. The field is significantly closer together with fewer stacked commands.

Random 4 KB Write Performance

The newer Samsung drives and OCZ's Vector do some serious damage with 4 KB writes fresh out-of-the-box. Consumer drives tend to deliver great results when they're clean, but seldom hold up well over time under enterprise workloads. Thankfully, most desktop users are pretty gentle, so SSDs running under TRIM-enabled operating systems should stay closer to the manufacturer specifications. 

Samsung's 840 120 GB doesn't make it past 140 MB/s, but the 250 GB version is locked in a dead heat with the SSD 525 when we use incompressible data. Hitting 250 MB/s isn't too shabby for a random data workload. However, when we swap over to compressible information, the SSD 525 matches the high-end 840 Pro and Vector. 

Christopher Ryan
14 Comments Comment from the forums
  • hero1
    Nice article. I would like to see more motherboard makers finding a way to include the mSATA slots right on the board like Gigabyte does. I think the ability to have your OS and programs on mSATA and leave the other SSD for games and storage is very welcome. This will be my next hunt, too bad I got rid of my UD5H because it had mSATA slot. I would like to see such feature in the X99/X89 platform.
    Reply
  • abbadon_34
    Interesting, if it wasn't a single brand.
    Reply
  • slomo4sho
    The 250 GB Samsung 840 still seems to be the best buy when evaluating price per performance as it is frequently offered at around $.60 or less per GB.
    Reply
  • abbadon_34
    damn site changes, no edit.

    Interesting, if some benches weren't Intel only, but all included the relavent competitors.
    Reply
  • sanilmahambre
    Impressive! but don't think i am wealthy enough to buy those
    Reply
  • damianrobertjones
    It is REALLY unfair to reduce the performance of smaller GB drives!
    Reply
  • dthx
    damianrobertjonesIt is REALLY unfair to reduce the performance of smaller GB drives!This is not something manufacturers do to just to p*ss off users who buy the smaller capacities.
    A small drive has fewer memory chips than a large drive. The controller has then fewer chips to efficiently spread the data to... and this leads to decreased performances. There's nothing immoral to that.
    It's not the same story like for example, a couple of years ago, Yamaha selling a 2x CD writer and a 4x CD writer at double the price ... and by removing one resistance, your 2x writer became a 4x model ;-)
    Reply
  • mapesdhs
    slomo4shoThe 250 GB Samsung 840 still seems to be the best buy when
    evaluating price per performance as it is frequently offered at around $.60 or less per GB.
    It's a surprisingly good drive, and performs very well on boards that only have SATA2.
    I recently upgraded my brother's P55 system with an 840 250GB; the main game he
    plays atm now loads in just a few seconds, instead of the more than 3 minutes it took
    with the old mechanical disk (and that wasn't exactly a low-end drive either - a WD VR
    150GB 10K SATA). He is, as one might expect, very happy indeed.

    In addition, I bought him an internal Startech storage unit that holds 4 x 2.5" devices
    (it takes up one 5.25" bay) and a couple of 2.5" drives (1TB for general data, 2nd-hand
    250GB for backup of the 840). He bought another 1TB for backup, so the Startech now
    holds the 840, two 1TB and the 250GB. The end results looks rather good, and the
    performance with the 840 is excellent (I bought one for my 3930K setup).

    I have a lot of OCZ drives (more than 40, various models); what impresses me the most
    about the 840 is the way it maintains top performance even after being hammered with
    an 80GB full clone from an old disk, lots of Windows and driver updates, game installs, etc.
    Testing with HDTach, AS-SSD, etc. show performance almost identical to an original clean
    state. None of my OCZ drives behave this way - the HDTach graph shows significant
    variance, while the 840 graph is smooth across the range. Beats me how Samsung has
    achieved this, but I like it.

    Modern SSDs may be saturating the SATA3 interface, but they bring an amazing new lease
    of life to older SATA2 systems.

    Ian.

    Reply
  • ddpruitt
    The vast majority of mSATA systems use the SSD as a cache, and then it's only Intel systems. I would like to see the mSATA ports be more flexible and offered on a larger variety of systems. I'd love to upgrade the mSATA on my laptop but there's no point, I already use an SSD for the main drive. Turning an mSATA into a usable drive on the system is a PITA and just not worth it.
    Reply
  • Onus
    I have an Asus Maximus Gene V which has a mSATA slot on a little riser card. I am using a 238GB-usable Crucial M4 there as my system drive. It's been working well, so I have no complaints.
    I have an ASRock Z77E-ITX back from RMA that I haven't yet put back into service that has a mSATA slot on its underside. It can be used to build a very small system. That these slots are only 3Gb/s hardly matters when comparing them to the speed of a mechanical HDD.
    Reply