Intel SSD 525 Review (240GB)
by Anand Lal Shimpi on January 30, 2013 1:42 AM ESTFinal Words
Intel's SSD 525, at least in the 240GB form we reviewed today, is largely an updated, smaller form factor version of the 520 we met last year. The firmware updates Intel put in place on the 525 seem to improve performance over the 520, and the drive does boast lower idle power consumption although higher active power usage compared to its older, larger brother.
Intel did focus on improving system stability and compatibility with the 525's firmware, which could make it a better solution than competing mSATA SandForce drives, especially for those users who have been burned by SandForce before. With SandForce's 3rd generation controller due out in the second half of the year and M.2 drives due out in a similar timeframe, the 525's honeymoon period really is now. Luckily for Intel, there's a large (and growing) population of mSATA enabled systems on the market today looking for a good SSD to power them. If you're ok with the tradeoffs that come with a SandForce drive, the 525 is probably one of the best mSATA options on the market today.
Unlike in the 2.5" SATA space where there are many controller/firmware combinations to choose from, it's tough finding really good mSATA drives in the etail channel. I'm glad to see Intel aggressively pursuing this market with the 525. I hope we'll see the same attention paid to M.2 when it begins to gain popularity.
I would still like to see Intel use more of its home grown controller technology in drives rather than relying on 3rd party controller vendors. Here's hoping that the technology used in the S3700 will eventually waterfall down to Intel's other products.
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vcorem - Wednesday, January 30, 2013 - link
http://m.tomshardware.com/news/Mushkin-480GB-mSATA...IanCutress - Wednesday, January 30, 2013 - link
Mushkin uses a stacked daughter board to achieve 480GB. This is usually ok in a motherboard, but not in a z-height limited mobile device. While it's still electrically mSATA, it is technically outside the mSATA specifications which limit z-height (if I recall correctly).lukarak - Wednesday, January 30, 2013 - link
What is the chip density in the 768 GB SSD board in a rMBP? Does it have 12?Kristian Vättö - Wednesday, January 30, 2013 - link
Yup, the 768GB SSD in rMBP has twelve 64GB (8x8GB) packages.However, SandForce has much stricter restrictions, the SF-2281/2 can only access up to 64 NAND dies (that's up to 512GB with 8GB dies). Samsung could build a 1TB drive if they wanted to, they just don't see the market for it (yet).
lukarak - Wednesday, January 30, 2013 - link
Thanks for the answer.On a slightly related note, the iPad (late 2012) 16 GB, has a single NAND chip, as could be seen in the teardowns, and there doesn't seem to be any room for more. Do you perhaps know, or care to speculate, how the higher capacity ones are configured, especially the new 128 GB version?
Kristian Vättö - Wednesday, January 30, 2013 - link
The 128GB model is most likely using new 128Gb (16GB) NAND dies to enable the higher capacity. You can only stack up to eight dies in a single package, so a higher capacity die was needed before you could go over 64GB (8x 16GB is 128GB).At least Samsung and IMFT have 128Gb dies in production but they most likely weren't available in volume when the iPad 4 was initially launched, hence the delay.
lukarak - Wednesday, January 30, 2013 - link
Makes sense, thanks for the insight.SAMSAMHA - Wednesday, January 30, 2013 - link
hi, AnandI am curious what board are you using to test this since none of the desktop board with mSATA that I know has SATA 6Gbps interface.
SodaAnt - Wednesday, January 30, 2013 - link
There are msata to sata conversion boards that work fine because msata and sata are electrically the same.Meaker10 - Wednesday, January 30, 2013 - link
The msi gt60 can ship with a pair of msata gen3 slots configurable in raid.