Any issues with the Intel 520?

[tutuava]

I'm looking for a SATA III SSD and was going to pick up an Intel 510 or whatever came after that. So the 520 seemed like the obvious choice until I learnt that it has a Sandforce controller. Maybe Intel know what they're doing and they got rid of all the bugs. But it's early days with that drive - have any issues surfaced yet? Have the bugs finally been fixed with Sandforce?

Alternatively I could get the Intel 330 (assuming it's not Sandforce) - does anyone know which controller it will have?


Otherwise I might go with Samsung 830 or a Crucial M4, but I was leaning towards Intel for reliability and all around snappy and good behaviour.

 

[Coup27]

A quick google of "Intel 520 BSOD" will give you plenty of indication that the 520 has not escaped the previous problems of SF.

The 510 is far too expensive and newer drives are faster.

The 330 is allegedly going to be SF as well, so it would be a performance throttled 520.

The m4 has shown to be a solid drive. The Samsung 830 is also a solid drive. I would take both over any SF based drive.

I think the 830 is hands down the best drive on the market and Samsung have a better reliability record than Intel.

 

[Ao1]

I am not a fan of using the 520 for client based applications, but it has nothing to do with concerns about reliability, but rather the lack compressibility of typical client based applications.

The Samsung 830 is a great drive, as is Plextor M3P and the M4. The 520 is also a great drive.


EDIT:

Oh and btw I own a 520 (as well as all of the above drives I listed excluding the Plextor) and I haven’t had a single bit of trouble with any of them.

 

[tutuava]

Googling BSOD for the M4 and 830 also brings up a lot of results though.. so not sure how indicative that is.

Ao1, looking at the Anand light and heavy workload tests which seem like they'd not be untypical for me the 520 does well so not sure why you wouldn't recommend it as a client drive..

I can buy the 520 for almost the same prices as the 320 and the 820 and M4, only the 510 is considerably higher priced.

Anand wrote something about the 830 doing a bunch of garbage collection when idling which put me off a bit.

 

[Ao1]

Googling BSOD for the M4 and 830 also brings up a lot of results though.. so not sure how indicative that is.

Ao1, looking at the Anand light and heavy workload tests which seem like they'd not be untypical for me the 520 does well so not sure why you wouldn't recommend it as a client drive..

I can buy the 520 for almost the same prices as the 320 and the 820 and M4, only the 510 is considerably higher priced.

Anand wrote something about the 830 doing a bunch of garbage collection when idling which put me off a bit.

Because I have spent considerable time exploring how SF drives work J. Compression works great with installations, although that does not translate to a real life performance benefit. Most typical client workloads don’t compress well at all.
That changes with enterprise applications and VM etc.
The easy way to see if you are benefiting is to compare host vs NAND writes.
The 830 is a great drive, all the drives I listed are

 

[sequoia464]

Have the bugs finally been fixed with Sandforce?

I don't really know that answer, but if OCZ is getting away from using Sandforce - that should speak volumes. I don't know the reasons behind the move, but the ongoing issues would seem to me a compelling reason to go with a different controller.

I don't know if they are moving away from Sandforce entirely but their Vertex4 and Octane are using Marvell controllers.

 

[The|Hunter]

From what i've read over teh interwbez it said it has great Firmware, much better then competition, so SF controller shouldn't be a issue.

 

[Cerb]

I don't know if they are moving away from Sandforce entirely but their Vertex4 and Octane are using Marvell controllers.

If they can get the low QD performance up, and issues don't come flooding in about the new drives, they'll have something good to work with. There's always a chance that OCZ may have finally realized that having the best performance in a few benchmarks isn't the only thing that matters. It honestly wouldn't surprise me if a reduction in support costs would be enough to make the new drives more profitable.

 

[nanaki333]

i just installed a 180GB 520. i'll be sure to make a post if it starts to urk me. so far so good though.

 

[kensiko30]

I searched for Intel 520 BSOD and I did not find a lot of results.

The few results were at least resolved by using MS driver instead of RST.

From all the SSD controllers, my preferred is the one from the X-25 series and 320. Unfortunately, the price is not following the competition.

In second, it's SandForce, second generation preferably. I feel the controller is getting the most of the nand it is connected to it, without compromising nand life. BUT, I would not put a SandForce in a laptop or a computer that uses sleep and hibernation a lot.

BTW, I made my boss buy 2 SandForce SSD for our 2 servers at work. They are running pretty good, no issue at all.