Quick Look: Intel's SSD DC S3700 200 And 800 GB Drives

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Intel recently sent over a pair of its SSD DC S3700 drives at 200 and 800 GB. Our esteemed storage expert, Drew Riley, just put the finishing touches on his in-depth evaluation, which includes comprehensive consistency analysis, lots of performance detail, and our exclusive look at enterprise video streaming. 

How do the drives do? Well, they're very fast, owning to Intel's first 6 Gb/s storage controller. But perhaps more important, they do a fantastic job of delivering a steady experience. Drew observed high power consumption, but the new drives do effectively drive down the price per gigabyte of capacity using high-endurance MLC flash memory. 

As you'll see in the upcoming piece, the SSD DC S3700s rectify the value caveats we mentioned in Intel SSD 710 Tested: MLC NAND Flash Hits The Enterprise.

Bestofmedia Team
17 Comments Comment from the forums
  • excella1221
    800gb SSD. :o
    Reply
  • deksman
    They can make far larger capacities than that (orders of magnitude larger - and in abundance seeing how we have ample resources and technology to do it)...
    Its just that it would be 'cost prohibitive' from a money point of view (in terms of manufacturing, and of course no one would be able to buy it).
    Reply
  • jn77
    Considering how "cheap" it is to manufacture memory these days I don't get the idea behind SSD's still being over priced...... (With the understanding that higher volume cuts prices down). They will more than make their R&D back if more people can afford them in capacities people want..... I would honestly say 1TB is the "happy medium" between people that don't do anything with their computer but want room to grow, and power users that could use 2 x 1TB....... and right now 1TB SSD's are at least $1500 or more.
    Reply
  • It's cheap to manufacture on a small scale--8, 16 GB is no big deal. But the more capacity you need, the more modules you need and it's not as simple as just slapping a few more flash RAM chips onto the board. Larger capacity storage requires changes in architecture and manufacturing, so they are understandably more expensive to make. And then there's the economic factor. They're likely artificially inflating the price somewhat so that it has someplace to go as the market embraces SSD's more. I'm no economist, so I can't really explain it, but I do know that there are some very good reasons why the price curve is what it is.
    Reply
  • LukeCWM
    Why are we talking about the size? The truly amazing thing about the S3700 is the consistent performance. No SSD has ever achieved this before.

    Second to that, the combination of reduced price (HP quoted me on an enterprise SSD a few months ago for only $18.72/GB) and endurance. The S3700 is rated for five full drive writes per day for five years under worst-case scenario data. This means the 200 GB model has an expected write endurance of greater than 3.5 PB.
    Reply
  • Marcus52
    jn77Considering how "cheap" it is to manufacture memory these days I don't get the idea behind SSD's still being over priced...... (With the understanding that higher volume cuts prices down). They will more than make their R&D back if more people can afford them in capacities people want..... I would honestly say 1TB is the "happy medium" between people that don't do anything with their computer but want room to grow, and power users that could use 2 x 1TB....... and right now 1TB SSD's are at least $1500 or more.

    Yeah, right, because $4/GB for RAM is cheaper than $1/GB for NAND.
    Reply
  • Nice vid!

    Impressive looking drives, but I don't know when I'll be in the market for a new SSD. I've been pretty happy with my Vertex2. It's like less than half the speed as these newer SSDs, but it still boots up Win7 in a few seconds. I might get another SSD sometime down the road and install Win8 on it, but I don't feel rich enough at the moment.
    Reply
  • phate1337
    well, the 800 gb model is currently rated at around the $1800 price mark, but look at what it gives you for the price! incredible. just plain awesome. but that said, the seagate Pulsar drives come in a little cheaper, and are rated for 10 full writes per day, not just the 5 that intel are. i'd still shell out the extra for the intel personally, just because their previous 700 series are so good.
    Reply
  • tsnor
    Sorry to get a mainly content free video rather than the same lack of information in text. The total script of the video couldn't be more than a paragraph or two. There are many places I can read an article where I can't watch video.

    Looking forward to a typcially great article "...As you'll see in the upcoming piece,..." to replace this video.
    Reply
  • LukeCWM
    I think I mis-spoke earlier. I think it is 10 full drive writes per day. Find out at Anandtech. They know. =]
    Reply