Intel 730 SSD with a skull!

[razel]

1st review I seen of the Intel 730 is off Storagereview. It's an Intel controller and not SandForce. Awesome low latency, but real-world performance is fine, just not in line with the price. Luckily newegg tends to heavily discount new Intel SSDs. I do like the 5 year warranty.

Interesting that it uses 12v if it sees 12v. Are these the overclockable ones Intel has been teasing? At least according to pcper it is overclocked,

'Intel tells us the SSD 730 is based on an overclocked version of the DC S3500.'

Time to waste time at work to scour the Internet for more reviews. 🙂

 

[Cerb]

Looks like a S3700 with less OP. I believe the 12V is partly there because it's easier to use for sensing power going out.

 

[VirtualLarry]

As far as performance goes, the Intel SSD 730 ranked middle of the pack in many of our tested categories. In our real-world workloads, however, it generally performed well below par, though it is highlighted by its strong performance in our read-intensive Gaming benchmark, which is one of the drive's key workload targets.

Overall, the Intel SSD 730 is a curious drive. It's targeted to very specific enthusiast use cases, but fails to be a dominating force. The drive comes complete with angry skull sticker and the ability to "overclock" for performance, but the substance behind the drive is lacking when considering price point (240GB - $249, 480GB - $489). The 730 is one of the most expensive client SSDs on the market from any mainstream vendor. While Intel may derive DNA from their enterprise controllers and SSD engineering knowledge, the 730 comes to market at roughly the same price as the S3500 for instance, from where much of that DNA comes. The 730 is also well above normal when it comes to power consumption, meaning notebook users should stay away. We're left then with a very tiny slice of the market available where the 730 could even make much sense, and even there users rendering 4K video or loading game levels would be hard pressed to notice a different between Intel's own drives, including the 530 which is half the cost, forgetting about the bevvy of competitive drives from other vendors that are also much less expensive. Intel should be commended for engineering a quality drive with components and DNA from the enterprise, but the 730 at this price point should be viewed pretty much as a proof of concept, not a marketable product.

Sounds like it's not so hot. Very expensive, comparatively-speaking.

 

[Cerb]

They'd probably fare better orienting it more for workstation/light server duty...except that put them in direct competition with the M500, 600, Extreme II, and 840 Pro. The other companies seem to willing to work on lower margins...

The competition is too good in quality and too low in price.

 

[Homeles]

I'd imagine this drive shines with its reliability and consistency. Reliability should be well proven, given that it's been tested in the enterprise space for a year now.

The question is whether or not the market is willing to pay a premium for that, while giving up some other important bullet points. I don't imagine this drive will do well, but it does have its place.

 

[ShintaiDK]

Almost 2x the price per GB. I dont see the value there. Its great with the Intel controller, but thats about it in terms of positive words.

 

[KingFatty]

It's appreciated that Intel would be catering to the enthusiast/gaming market. But, I'm a bit disappointed that they appear to be "exploiting" in the sense that the pricing seems extra inflated simply because they think the market will pay extra, compared to similar offerings that aren't specifically branded (e.g., without that neat looking skull logo plastered on the SSD).

But I mean, video cards have been getting fancy logos/stickers for a while now, and nobody else is putting fancy images on their SSDs so at least Intel is breaking ground in that department. I would like to see some LEDs that light up, I like that on video cards too.

 

[Charlie98]

In general Intel SSDs have always been a little more pricey than it's direct competition, this one isn't that far off. The 840Pro was about $1/GB when it came out (I was giddy with delight when I got my 256GB 840Pro for $209, ) according to the article this Intel will be about the same, even less when it gets discounted by the Big Sellers.

What I can't figure out is the marketing angle. The cheezy skull needs to go on the low-priced consumer-level SSD, not the professional/enterprise-level stuff.

 

[fleshconsumed]

I'd imagine this drive shines with its reliability and consistency. Reliability should be well proven, given that it's been tested in the enterprise space for a year now.

Don't know about that anymore. This sentence from the review makes me really question the supposed reliability: "Intel has also stepped up its game with their new SSD by factory overclocking these components, pushing the limits of performance by increasing its controller speed by 50% as well as offering a 20% boost in NAND bus speed." Yes, it's intel and all, but overclocking hard drive? I'd rather take a small performance hit than risk losing my data and having to reinstall everything. Of course this might me a "safe"/"minor" overclock that does not affect stability, but it still rubs me the wrong way. I hate hard drive failures/reinstalling OS.

In other thoughts, I'm thankful for Intel pushing the SSD bandwagon forward, Intel really sped up SSD adoption by forcing other SSD manufacturers to develop better and bug free controllers. I still have 160GB G2 running in my file server, but the 730 drive is too expensive for what it offers. Maybe to someone it's going to be worth it, but seeing how 240GB M500 was on sale for $120 just a few months ago, it's hard to plop down twice as much for 730.

 

[Haserath]

I'm not surprised it isn't the fastest since there is this:

MLC-HET also trades performance for endurance by using lower programming voltages, resulting in less stress on the silicon oxide.

But SSDs aren't really mature enough yet to want to pay more for more reliability and longevity. If it's even worth it to pay that much more as a consumer.

 

[Homeles]

Don't know about that anymore. This sentence from the review makes me really question the supposed reliability: "Intel has also stepped up its game with their new SSD by factory overclocking these components, pushing the limits of performance by increasing its controller speed by 50% as well as offering a 20% boost in NAND bus speed." Yes, it's intel and all, but overclocking hard drive? I'd rather take a small performance hit than risk losing my data and having to reinstall everything. Of course this might me a "safe"/"minor" overclock that does not affect stability, but it still rubs me the wrong way. I hate hard drive failures/reinstalling OS.

In other thoughts, I'm thankful for Intel pushing the SSD bandwagon forward, Intel really sped up SSD adoption by forcing other SSD manufacturers to develop better and bug free controllers. I still have 160GB G2 running in my file server, but the 730 drive is too expensive for what it offers. Maybe to someone it's going to be worth it, but seeing how 240GB M500 was on sale for $120 just a few months ago, it's hard to plop down twice as much for 730.

Poor reliability is almost always the result of bad firmware. I'm not concerned about overclocking at all. We do it all the time.

 

[Cerb]

I'm not surprised it isn't the fastest since there is this:

But SSDs aren't really mature enough yet to want to pay more for more reliability and longevity. If it's even worth it to pay that much more as a consumer.

Their lack of maturity is a reason for paying more for just that, and it gets done all the time.

...But, not by enthusiasts. It makes sense to pay more when changing out drives, or having to tweak things for a drive with fragile performance, cost time and/or money that could be put to better use. Customers in that kind of situation are either going to choose a drive that's a better overall value, though, like an M500, 840 Pro, 600, etc., or go straight for server-grade gear (which, deep down, is what this drive is). Enthusiasts will be changing hardware often enough that even if they use an appreciable amount of the wear, they'll be upgrading soon, anyway, or that will give them a good excuse to.

Samsung and Sandisk each got the enthusiast feature sets right, mobile included (where LAMD lacks), and while not usually cheap, they're not too expensive, if you need/want better than average stuff. The value adds of eMLC and power loss protection are too little, outside of their element, for the cost. If the cost goes down, it might be OK, but then it will still be mostly OK.

 

[VirtualLarry]

Y'know, if they made the skull out of plastic, and put some blue LED eyes in it, such that the whole skull glowed blue, and flickered when accessed... that might be worth it.

 

[Seven]

What I can't figure out is the marketing angle. The cheezy skull needs to go on the low-priced consumer-level SSD, not the professional/enterprise-level stuff.

This is not really out of the water. Intel puts their skulls on performance MBs as well..

 

[ethebubbeth]

Yeah, it's an overclocked S3500 with less overprovisioning. One nice holdover from being based on an enterprise drive is that it has onboard capacitors so it can properly flush its cache to nand in the case of a power outage.

It is still cheaper per gigabyte than the S3500, sadly, despite being incredibly expensive compared to its high end consumer competition. I can only really see a place for this in a workstation system that is focusing on data integrity and resilience.

 

[Emulex]

the S3500 and all intel SSD's for value-oriented servers, do the old "write slowly" trick to not wear out the nand as quickly. If you haven't noticed the consumer drives write very fast comparitively and that alone contributes to wear greatly!

 

[Turab]

Yeah, it's an overclocked S3500 with less overprovisioning.

Also without eMLC Flash 🙂

But what about these two's firmwares ?