Specification and Test Methodology
| Intel 510 Series SSD technical specification | ||
|---|---|---|
| Capacity | 120GB | 250GB |
| Price | £220 | £445 |
| NAND flash components | 34-nm Intel NAND Flash Memory multi-level cell | |
| Bandwidth | Sustained sequential reads | |
Up to 450 MB/s
(SATA 6 Gb/s) |
Up to 500 MB/s (SATA 6 Gb/s) |
|
| Sustained sequential writes | ||
Up to 210 MB/s
(SATA 6 Gb/s) |
Up to 315 MB/s
(SATA 6 Gb/s) |
|
| Read latency | 65 microseconds (120GB and 250GB) | |
| Write latency | 80 microseconds (120GB and 250GB) | |
| Random I/O Operations per Second | Random 4KB Reads: up to 20K IOPS |
|
| Interface | Compatible with SATA 3Gbps and 6Gbps | |
| Form factor, height and weight | 2.5 inch industry standard form factor |
|
| Life expectancy | 1.2 million hours Mean Time Between Failure (MTBF) | |
| Power consumption | Active: 380 mW Typical |
|
| Operating shock | 1,500G/0.5 ms | |
| Operating temperature | 0°C to 70°C | |
| Product health monitoring | Intel Data Migration Software |
|
Comparison drives |
||||||||
|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| Capacity | Controller | Firmware | Interface | RAID mode | TRIM support | Cost* | Cost per GB | |
| G.Skill Phoenix Pro | 40GB | SandForce SF-1222 | 2.1 | SATA 3Gbps | - | Yes | £80** | £2 |
| Crucial Real SSD C300 | 64GB | Marvell 88SS9174-BJP2 | 002 | SATA 3Gbps | - | Yes | £85 | £1.3 |
| Crucial Real SSD C300 | 64GB | Marvell 88SS9174-BJP2 | 002 | SATA 6Gbps | - | Yes | £85 | £1.3 |
| Corsair Force Series F80 | 80GB | SandForce SF-1222 | 1.1 | SATA 3Gbps | - | Yes | £145** | £1.8 |
| G.Skill Phoenix Pro (x2) | 80GB | SandForce SF-1222 | 2.1 | SATA 3Gbps | RAID 0 | Yes | £160** | £2 |
| OCZ Vertex 2 | 120GB | SandForce SF-1222 | 1.11 | SATA 3Gbps | - | Yes | £160 | £1.3 |
| Patriot Inferno | 120GB | SandForce SF-1222 | 320A13F0 | SATA 3Gbps | - | Yes | £160 | £1.3 |
| Intel 510 Series | 120GB | Marvell 88SS9174-BKK2 | PPG2 | SATA 3Gbps | - | Yes | £220 | £1.8 |
| Intel 510 Series | 120GB | Marvell 88SS9174-BKK2 | PPG2 | SATA 6Gbps | - | Yes | £220 | £1.8 |
| OCZ RevoDrive | 120GB | SandForce SF-1222 (x2) | 1.20 | PCIe x4 | RAID 0 (internal) | No | £225 | £1.9 |
| Corsair Force Series F80 (x2) | 160GB | SandForce SF-1222 | 1.1 | SATA 3Gbps | RAID 0 | Yes | £290** | £1.8 |
| OCZ RevoDrive X2 | 240GB | SandForce SF-1222 (x4) | 1.20 | PCIe x4 | RAID 0 (internal) | No | £460 | £1.9 |
| Samsung HD103SJ HDD | 1TB | N/A, hard-disk | 1AJ100E4 | SATA 3Gbps | - | N/A | £40 | £0.04 |
| Samsung HD103SJ HDD (x2) | 2TB | N/A, hard-disk | 1AJ100E4 | SATA 3Gbps | RAID 0 | N/A | £80 | £0.04 |
| *Approximate price, correct at time of writing **Discontinued model, no longer available |
||||||||
Test bench |
|||||||||
|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| CPU | Intel Core i5 2500K (3.3GHz, 6MB L3 cache, quad-core, LGA1155) | ||||||||
| Motherboard | Intel DP67BG | ||||||||
| Memory | 8GB Corsair Vengeance (9-9-9-24-2T @ 1,600MHz) | ||||||||
| Host hard drive | Crucial 256GB RealSSD C300 (SATA 6Gbps) | ||||||||
| Storage controllers | Intel P67 PCH (SATA 6Gbps, AHCI) | ||||||||
| Graphics card | AMD Radeon HD 6850 1GB | ||||||||
| Power supply | Corsair AX750 | ||||||||
| Operating system | Windows 7 Ultimate SP1, 64-bit | ||||||||
Benchmarks |
|
|---|---|
| ATTO Disk Benchmark | The freeware ATTO benchmark provides basic sequential speed results for both read and write operations. Using the default queue depth of four, we record read and write speeds during 1MB transfers. |
| CrystalDiskMark | CrystalDiskMark provides various storage benchmarks, but we're interested in the returned 32-thread 4K performance numbers to see how well the drives fare when tasked with numerous small transfers. |
| AS SSD | Another freeware benchmark, AS SSD is designed primarily for testing solid-state storage. We run the benchmark and record the drive's overall read and write scores. The final numbers take into account sequential speeds, input/output performance and access time. |
| Iometer | Iometer is an I/O subsystem measurement tool originally developed by Intel. To measure a drive's I/O performance, we set the benchmark to utilise 4KB transfers in a random spread. Read and write distribution is set to 50 per cent, and queue depth at 32. The test is run for two minutes and we record the total I/Os per second. |
| PCMark Vantage | Emulating real-world use, PCMark Vantage spits out a bunch of data on the relative speed of the drives when undertaking common tasks. We record Windows startup, application load time and gaming performance. |
We've listed the specification of both the 120GB and 250GB 510 Series drives at the top of the page as a point of reference, but remember we're only reviewing the 120GB model. It's also worth noting that due to ongoing performance issues with the SATA 6Gbps controller on our previous X58 test rig, we've made the transition to a new Intel Sandy Bridge platform.
What's interesting is that the 120GB 510 Series drive carries a £60 premium over last-generation drives of the same capacity. Will the SATA 6Gbps performance increase warrant the 38 per cent price premium over a Vertex 2? And can Intel's latest fend off similarly-priced PCIe storage solutions? The answers are overleaf.
