Question Intel 660P worth the upgrade?

BoomerD

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Feb 26, 2006
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https://www.pcgamer.com/amp/intels-1tb-nvme-solid-state-drive-hits-a-new-low-at-dollar101/
Damn nice price. Is that worth the upgrade, or spend a bit more for a better SSD?

I don't really know squat about the different types of SSD's on the market, I tend to think of the, as "built-in flash drives." :p
From reading, I know there are faster SSD's available, longer endurance ratings, etc, but at this price point?

Oh, btw, primary uses are gaming and surfing. No photoshop or lightroom, etc.
 
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Markfw

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May 16, 2002
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Of the reviews I read it was the slowest or almost the slowest of all SSD's. But for what you do, it may be fine. And its $110, not 101 like the title says.
 

BoomerD

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Even though the price is tempting, I'm leaning towards the HP EX950 or the Corsair MP510. Looks like they're quite a bit faster, with more endurance. (not that I'd expect to ever hit the lower endurance rate of th e Intel drive)
 

UsandThem

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May 4, 2000
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Depends on the price. At $110, the 1TB 660P would be a great fit for most users who don't have heavy writes (which you stated you wouldn't). It's faster than all SATA SSDs, so most people would be happy with its "real world" performance.
https://www.tomshardware.com/reviews/intel-ssd-660p-qlc-nvme,5719.html

That said, 1TB drives like the Corsair MP510 and the MyDigitalSSD BPX PRO are sitting at $150 right now, and they both offer a ton of endurance, but offer a little less "real world" performance results in many benchmarks:
https://www.tomshardware.com/reviews/corsair-force-mp510-ssd,5848-2.html

So wrapping it up, I'd personally pick the Intel drive at $110 since I am not a write heavy user, and Intel has good quality control and is usually is good about offering firmware updates / drive utilities.
 

Campy

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Jun 25, 2010
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I'd take it over a SATA SSD any day, not to mention the ease of installation which is another big plus. You could always get an additional faster (and smaller) NVMe SSD for OS.
 
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BoomerD

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I'd take it over a SATA SSD any day, not to mention the ease of installation which is another big plus. You could always get an additional faster (and smaller) NVMe SSD for OS.

I have a WD Green 240 gb drive for the OS...want to replace it with something bigger/faster.
 

VirtualLarry

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I don't know if I could ever use a 660p. Not because I'm an SSD snob, or think it's inferior, just that, some days, I like to download swathes of Linux ISOs from the 'net, and I copy them back and forth to my NAS. My NAS can sustain 100MB/sec fairly easily over my gigabit LAN, but ... I used to use an Intel 600p (TLC), a predecessor to the 660p (QLC), and it wasn't pretty when it ran out of SLC cache. Write speeds tanked. I mean, like 1/3 of a modern HDD type of speed. Really awful.

I've experienced that with Adata SU800 as well, again, when the SLC cache is exhausted, from writing a plethora of ISOs to it at once, or sometimes, during an extended OS installation, or backup restore operation. Down to 30MB/sec. From 400-500MB/sec. PAinful at times. In fact, copying 12 Linux Mint ISOs to my Team Group C188 USB3.0/3.1 Flash Drive, I was averaging between 37-49MB/sec write speeds. Yeah, faster than the Adata 128GB SU800, when you exhaust the SLC cache, doing the same thing that I was doing.

So, I'm more a fan of SSDs that can maintain speed, or at least, not drop down so much when their SLC cache is exhausted.

I thought that I read in a review, that the 660p would drop down, not to 30MB/sec, but something like 100MB/sec, which to me, would still likely be acceptable, as it would still max out transfers coming from my NAS over GbE to my client SSD. (I'll have to scour reviews to try to find that spec., but now I'm thinking of dropping some coin next month on a pair of 2TB 660p drives. Why not.)

One of the SusWrite 10s intervals benchmark listings shows 54 and 73MB/sec that it dropped down to. That's still likely better than my 600p, which was actually one of the first TLC NVMe SSDs, at least from Intel, and suffered from some firmware issues.

https://ssd.userbenchmark.com/SpeedTest/557263/INTEL-SSDPEKNW512G8

Edit: I think that I paid close to $100 for my 256GB 600p, and now you can get a 1TB 660p with better specs, for around the same price. Sounds like a win to me.

Endurance-wise, I don't know if QLC is an issue yet or not.

Right now, I'm using an Adata SP550 240GB on my main rig, and I have 10TB of TBW so far, after like nearly 2 years of usage. (Recent restore attempts that kept failing, because of my Mesh wifi - I had to wire up again, just to get restores to complete successfully, caused my TBW to jump from like 8.2 to 10TB in as much as a week.)

And finally, an update to the Adata SSD Toolbox (or maybe my jump to 10TBW), is showing my SSD lifespan gauge actually dropping down a few pixels now from 100% full, so maybe 96-97% life left. Still plenty.

I honestly actually think that it's worse for an SSD (TLC and QLC) to just sit there, with data on it, but unpowered and unused, than it is, being used and "wearing". It seems to lag less if it's consistently powered and used. SSDs were meant to be used, people!

Edit: So, yeah, you probably won't be disappointed if you get a 1TB or even a 2TB 660p (I would suggest 2TB, obviously), but you could get better benchmarks and better endurance with a higher-end drive. Then again, if you're shopping for performance, PCI-E 4.0 is about the drop, and the 970 EVO/PRO is getting a little "old", surely, Samsung is cooking up some PCI-E 4.0 NVMe goodies for us in their product labs. The cost of the 970 EVO/PRO might go down once the PCI-E 4.0 drives come out. The high-end is not the market for the 660p, so I doubt that we would see their prices drop much, other than NAND production-cost related drops (QLC yields are getting better).

But my point is, maybe it's better to get a 660p, get the space for cost, with NVMe performance, today, and then WAIT if you REALLY WANT a "performance" SSD, for PCI-E 4.0 to drop. (Zen 2 / Ryzen 3rd-Gen CPU will have it.)

You can always get a cheap adapter bracket board to drop into a PCI-E slot for your spare NVMe drive, so you could continue to use your 2TB 660p, even if you get a Samsung 980 EVO PCI-E 4.0 1TB drive for $200-250. (This last sentence was purely speculative.)
 
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BoomerD

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I dropped the hammer on the HP EX950 1TB. We'll see. The bench comparisons posted by usandthem kind of made my decision for me...

https://ssd.userbenchmark.com/Compare/Intel-660p-NVMe-PCIe-M2-1TB-vs-HP-EX950-1TB/m602553vsm706053

HUGE difference in performance. Not a terrible increase in price. More than the 660, but not nearly as bad as the Samsung 970's

Now I gotta figure out how to move my WD Black HDD to the new system without losing everything on it. (has Windows 7 loaded in addition to a ton of other crap.
 

BoomerD

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@BoomerD Find and use imaging software. It'll copy all the contents of the HDD to the SSD.

Thanks, but I want to keep the HDD in the system for backup and data storage. (although it might be redundant since there's already a Seagate 2tb drive in there.) Might just replace the Seagate. IIRC, they're not the most dependable...but that may have changed. (they used to be one of the best...then reports said they had gone to crap...could have swung back the other way)
 

cbn

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I thought that I read in a review, that the 660p would drop down, not to 30MB/sec, but something like 100MB/sec, which to me, would still likely be acceptable, as it would still max out transfers coming from my NAS over GbE to my client SSD. (I'll have to scour reviews to try to find that spec., but now I'm thinking of dropping some coin next month on a pair of 2TB 660p drives. Why not.)

https://www.anandtech.com/show/14249/the-intel-optane-memory-h10-review-two-ssds-in-one/4

Yes, the 1TB 660p has 118 MB/s Sequential after the SLC exhausted:

fill-last16.png


So I assuming the 2TB would be 236 MB/s

P.S. Notice the Intel 760p 512GB has 363 MB/s....so I am assuming 1TB 760p would be 726 MB/s and a 2TB 760p would be 1452 MB/s. (With that noted 660p is about half the price of a 760p....so when doing comparisons (dollar for dollar) a 660p of about the 2x the capacity could be compared to a 760p of 1x the capacity. Furthermore I am wondering if perhaps in the future might have a small die QLC to increase parallelism per TB of QLC which would reduce the gap between QLC and TLC.)
 
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IntelUser2000

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P.S. Notice the Intel 760p 512GB has 363 MB/s....so I am assuming 1TB 760p would be 726 MB/s and a 2TB 760p would be 1452 MB/s.

I don't think it will increase. The number of channels get maxed out with 1TB on both drives, and that determines its sequential performance. >1TB drives are rated the same.
 

fire400

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Nov 21, 2005
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paired with the right laptop motherboard, the Intel option will offer slightly better battery life in business laptops, based on Dell options, specifically.

the modern Samsung SSD's are picky on older operating systems, w7, w8.1 on Lenovo's.

not all NVME's are created equal. the Intel won't be as fast as the Samsung in raw speed, but in terms of reliability and compatible hardware/software combinations, sometimes it takes some trial and error to get the match that we initially anticipated.
 

Billy Tallis

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I don't think it will increase. The number of channels get maxed out with 1TB on both drives, and that determines its sequential performance. >1TB drives are rated the same.
Having a flash die attached to each channel isn't the same thing as having each channel be 100% busy. Each plane on each flash die has a page buffer that data to be written is transferred to before the NAND program operation is performed. Once that transfer is complete, the channel is idle and available for use transferring data to a different die or plane, while the previously issued program operation is in progress. (3D XPoint doesn't have these page buffers, which is why performance doesn't change much from 280GB up to 1.5TB on the 900P/905P.)
 

VirtualLarry

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FWIW, in this morning's Newegg emailer, the 1tb 660p is on sale for $99.99.
I think that might be my next purchase. I've having trouble deciding on a 1TB 660p, a 2TB 660p (since nearly the same $/GB), or a 512GB EX920 or EX950. I don't need a HUGE primary SSD, and my Steam games are now on my 4TB Seagate 5400RPM HDD (which gives 200MB/sec sequential reads, very nice for a big drive like that), so I don't need a huge primary SSD for Steam games. I don't generally load a lot of programs, either. But I do have some block-chain-type applications, with their associated blockchains, which currently reside on my HDD, but disk I/O on that drive gets maxed out when I start one of those apps, so I would like to move them to SSD if necessary.

Edit: Oh yes, I have a/several NAS units, that I use for backup and archiving / storage, so I don't need a lot of local storage either.
 

BoomerD

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I think that might be my next purchase. I've having trouble deciding on a 1TB 660p, a 2TB 660p (since nearly the same $/GB), or a 512GB EX920 or EX950. I don't need a HUGE primary SSD, and my Steam games are now on my 4TB Seagate 5400RPM HDD (which gives 200MB/sec sequential reads, very nice for a big drive like that), so I don't need a huge primary SSD for Steam games. I don't generally load a lot of programs, either. But I do have some block-chain-type applications, with their associated blockchains, which currently reside on my HDD, but disk I/O on that drive gets maxed out when I start one of those apps, so I would like to move them to SSD if necessary.

Edit: Oh yes, I have a/several NAS units, that I use for backup and archiving / storage, so I don't need a lot of local storage either.

I ordered the 1tb EX950 for my primary drive. I'll keep MOST stuff on the 2tb HDD, but the most common games and programs, I'll put on the SSD.
 

IntelUser2000

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Having a flash die attached to each channel isn't the same thing as having each channel be 100% busy.

While that's a valid point, the 1TB and 2TB versions are rated identically. Since its a sequential test anyway, there's no reason to expect different behavior.
 

VirtualLarry

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Well, I did it, I dropped some coin on a pair of 1TB 660p NVMe SSDs. (For two rigs, not planning on RAID-0.)

Newegg had some "Open-Box" for $87.99. Well, I guess I'll find out if they are in OK shape.

1) Does Intel have a "Toolbox", does it support their NVMe SSDs, and does it allow for a "Secure Erase"? That's the first thing that I plan on doing with these (sanitize them).

Hopefully I didn't make a mistake ordering these. The Team Group SATA 2.5" GX1 960GB SSDs were $92.99 New.
 

BoomerD

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Feb 26, 2006
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Well, I did it, I dropped some coin on a pair of 1TB 660p NVMe SSDs. (For two rigs, not planning on RAID-0.)

Newegg had some "Open-Box" for $87.99. Well, I guess I'll find out if they are in OK shape.

1) Does Intel have a "Toolbox", does it support their NVMe SSDs, and does it allow for a "Secure Erase"? That's the first thing that I plan on doing with these (sanitize them).

Hopefully I didn't make a mistake ordering these. The Team Group SATA 2.5" GX1 960GB SSDs were $92.99 New.

https://downloadcenter.intel.com/product/149409/Intel-SSD-660p-Series

I wish HP had such tools for the EX950.
 

theblackbox

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Oct 1, 2004
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If you have a micro center near you, the price on the inland premium 1tb with the poison e12 is still under 120. It’s a fast drive.