Intel really dropped the ball on whole consumer ssd business. And now this drive. This thing doesn't even have a single intel component inside. So pretty much, this is a Sandforce drive with Intel badge on it.
Intel has dropped the ball on all consumer markets lately. They're losing billions a year subsidizing Atom, just to be price-competitive with ARM chips, and now they're a full year behind with Broadwell, which won't see mainstream shipping until first half of 2015. Also, Broadwell sucks, too. But that won't stop Intel from making bombastic claims about it, which I can already see ("HALF the power consumption of Haswell" - but with much lower performance, which we won't tell you about, until you've already been suckered into buying one).
I remember when they slipped up with the P4 "NetBurst" architecture. Trying to win the Ghz wars.
Maybe AMD will have a chance to come back on the chip end, I like their low end solutions that are coming out, and I miss being able to be an AMD fan boy and not be ignoring reality.
> They're losing billions a year subsidizing Atom, just to be price-competitive with ARM chips, and now they're a full year behind with Broadwell, which won't see mainstream shipping until first half of 2015.
Heh, i was not aware of that. It seems, that Intel needs to put its priorities right. :)
I think Krysto takes Charlie as "FullyAccurate" hahaha
Although, I do think Intel just needs to ditch Atom and come up with a custom IP ARM core, build a SoC out of it, put gen 7 graphics, a modern radio, etc. It will be great!
Intel is the second most profitable tech company in the world, only beaten by Apple. I don't think the SSD business is their priority anymore. They did their job with the X25, jump starting the SSD race. They needed to do this because hard disks were becoming such a bottleneck that it was literally holding them back from selling performance CPU's.
I predict they will exit the SSD market now that they've propped it up. This drive is clear proof of just that.
I don't think they ever intended to be a major player in the consumer side, low margins and all that, they jumped in to kickstart the market while other OEM couldn't get out of their own way.
Given that Enterprise SSD was the province of small vendors and RAM SSDs for more than a decade before NAND versions began to be built, Intel really has never had an Enterprise presence in SSD. That they make half-hearted attempts, using third-party controllers no less, means they won't be taken seriously. IBM could have bought their SSD shop, but took Texas Memory instead. There's a lesson in that.
IBM's SSA revenue is not even close, let alone the fact that the array market is not the same thing as the enterprise SSD market. Many SSA vendors use drives from the enterprise SSD vendors.
Just because Intel/whoever shifts lots o SATA drek to ABC Corp. to fill up desktops and the occasional windoze/*nix document server doesn't make Intel/whoever an Enterprise Storage player.
Enterprise Storage means: fibre channel serial attached SCSI InfiniBand
"The first terabyte class FC SSD systems started shipping in February 2003."
what a funny bunny. intel focuses more on enterprise ssd and is the #1 vendor in that space. the 3rd part controllers are for low margin consumer drives.
Crucial more exciting than SanDisk in client SSD?? The value of the Extreme II and performance of the Extreme Pro are more interesting to me than anything Crucial has (price).
Given the overall similarity of modern SSD performance in client workloads, price & reliability are the most important aspects (to me). It's not like even a fairly heavy workload will result in differences even a power user is likely to notice.
Wow, are you really saying you'd opt for an MX100 instead of the Sandisk X210? Because that would be a really weird decision (they're almost the same price here). The X210 is by far the better product yet is only fractionally more.
Ian, you couldn't be more wrong. Although Sandisk makes solid products and is a large OEM partner, they can't come close to competing with crucial\micron manufacturing capacity which inevitably makes Sandisk more expensive. When you consider crucial\micron drives have more features and better reliability than everyone else, the writing is on the wall. Sandisk (and Samsung, Toshiba\OCZ, and perhaps Intel) will continue to be relevant form their product segments but crucial\micron will always be king of ssd volume and reliability.
Everyone else will be irrelevant. Kingston, ADATA, PNY, OWC, and so on, will all fail in the consumer space because they are doing what Intel is doing with this very drive, relying on outsourced components. The problem for them is they can't charge what Intel can. They'll be lucky to even break even in the future.
I don't know where you're from, but here in EU MX100 is almost 110€ cheaper than X210 (YES, 110€ cheaper) for 512GB capacity. So you would have to be insane to fork that much more for only a marginally better performing drive.
In Slovakia is the price of Crucial MX100 512GB cca 183€ with tax compared to 235€ of SanDisk X210 512GB. For me is the X210 right choice because of better warranty (3y vs 5y) and much better performance.
Why on earth would someone (client or business) choose this sub-bar product over Samsung new V-NAND drives given they are priced on the same range? This product doesn't even have an Intel chip inside!
When I upgrade my client's computers they say, "Samsung? What happened with Intel?" And I tell them, "Oh those Intel SSD days are long over." I like Intel as a company, and they had the resources to keep up with the SSD innovation train. It isn't too late for them. The focus should move to M.2 PCIe with NVMe.
I wouldn't say Intel isn't innovative in the SSD space as the P3700 was one of the first NVMe drives to ship. It's just that Intel's focus is in the enterprise market and their efforts in that front don't translate to the client market.
You are talking about intel. They should be way more innovative with what resources they have, but I assume this is typical intel. They were never satisfying but just dominating.
Intel doesn't have the experience that Texas Memory has, and is the reason IBM bought them rather than Intel. Intel has cpu design and fab expertise. Enterprise SSD? Not so much. It's not a mass production venue. Whether SSD gets to the point of HDD, where the only real difference is QA of parts, is the question. It's still more about design and execution of a very different part.
I'm really not sure what these drives are good for. Intel already has a line of drives which offer functionality above that of consumer offerings: that's the Pro 1500 series which is in spirit (and price) an excellent successor to the venerable 320 line. That line was relatively popular even among consumer builds and in workstations precisely because it offered extra features not commonly available in consumer drives (such as encryption and power-loss protection). These drives on the other hand have basically no advantages over competitive offerings and a lot of downsides including the high price.
"the Pro 2500 is another example of Intel's lack of interest and innovation in the client space." That is an interesting comment, based upon that fact that this drive isn't intended to address that space, period. I think there might be a bit of a lack of understanding between the two markets. The business-class SSD market is growing very fast right now, and Intel is wise to address it. Who wouldn't? Haven't you noticed every other SSD player is entering this very same space? Perhaps there is a reason for that. Businesses are looking for different metrics than an obviously consumer-slanted writer understands. Reliability above performance, extended and proven track record (SF) makes it much easier to get through qual cycles. There are so many aspects of this market that the Pro addresses, but were ignored. ...and there's more, "The problem is that TCG Opal 2.0 and eDrive will never become consumer friendly features if manufacturers do not include them in their client drives, which is what happens if there is a separate business lineup." Again, the focus on consumer market, where no other SSD manufacturer is developing these for the consumer market for a reason. These features often add export restrictions, which are totally unneeded for the consumer segment, where maybe 1% will utilize those features, even with broad acceptance.
"Haven't you noticed every other SSD player is entering this very same space?"
Not everyone is. Out of the big players, only SanDisk's and Intel's strategy is to separate the client and business SSDs. Samsung and Crucial are going with an all-in-one approach by implementing the security features to their client SSDs.
Reliability is always a moot point because there is no sufficient data to back it up. Sure Intel has always been reliable but the days of Intel being the only reliable OEM are far behind. Crucial, Samsung and SanDisk can certainly match Intel in terms of reliability.
It's true that I'm not an IT admin but the points Intel are using to sell the drive (security features and reliability) aren't unique.
I have to say I have never been a fan of business SSDs. They tend to be just consumer SSDs with a couple of software features to justify the higher price tag and this is the case with the Pro 2500.
you forget to think as a IT/pro manager : what it matters the more is the price in time. And this "pro" version have a longer warranty than usual public version. In firms, Money always counts more than performances, specially on long time term.
The SSD 530 carries the same 5-year warranty and if warranty really counts, then the 850 Pro is the king with its 10-year warranty (Extreme Pro has 10 years too but no security features).
go to Zolt's site, http://www.storagesearch.com/ and take a look at who's really making real Enterprise SSD. If you recognize even 1% of the names, I'll eat my hat. It's a pork pie, so I suppose it'll taste good, if need be.
The "rankings" he publishes are the least, by far and away, interesting thing. How Enterprise SSD companies go about their business is what's important. That, and the technical bits about how DRAM/SSD and NAND/SSD work.
At one time, Timex sold the most watches. Not very good ones, of course. Drek SATA SSDs are in the same class. They aren't Enterprise Storage.
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42 Comments
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mmrezaie - Wednesday, July 30, 2014 - link
good for samsung.CrystalBay - Wednesday, July 30, 2014 - link
Good article as always Hellhound, Yes 850 P is wanted .AnnonymousCoward - Thursday, July 31, 2014 - link
As always, not a single real world test to tell us the tangible difference of this drive versus others.hojnikb - Wednesday, July 30, 2014 - link
Intel really dropped the ball on whole consumer ssd business.And now this drive. This thing doesn't even have a single intel component inside. So pretty much, this is a Sandforce drive with Intel badge on it.
Krysto - Wednesday, July 30, 2014 - link
Intel has dropped the ball on all consumer markets lately. They're losing billions a year subsidizing Atom, just to be price-competitive with ARM chips, and now they're a full year behind with Broadwell, which won't see mainstream shipping until first half of 2015. Also, Broadwell sucks, too. But that won't stop Intel from making bombastic claims about it, which I can already see ("HALF the power consumption of Haswell" - but with much lower performance, which we won't tell you about, until you've already been suckered into buying one).tarqsharq - Wednesday, July 30, 2014 - link
I remember when they slipped up with the P4 "NetBurst" architecture. Trying to win the Ghz wars.Maybe AMD will have a chance to come back on the chip end, I like their low end solutions that are coming out, and I miss being able to be an AMD fan boy and not be ignoring reality.
hojnikb - Wednesday, July 30, 2014 - link
> They're losing billions a year subsidizing Atom, just to be price-competitive with ARM chips, and now they're a full year behind with Broadwell, which won't see mainstream shipping until first half of 2015.Heh, i was not aware of that. It seems, that Intel needs to put its priorities right. :)
nonoverclock - Wednesday, July 30, 2014 - link
Wow. Exaggerate much and have an axe to grind? "Losing billions a year"? "Broadwell sucks, too" - I haven't read that review yet can you link to it?extide - Wednesday, July 30, 2014 - link
I think Krysto takes Charlie as "FullyAccurate" hahahaAlthough, I do think Intel just needs to ditch Atom and come up with a custom IP ARM core, build a SoC out of it, put gen 7 graphics, a modern radio, etc. It will be great!
Samus - Wednesday, July 30, 2014 - link
Intel is the second most profitable tech company in the world, only beaten by Apple. I don't think the SSD business is their priority anymore. They did their job with the X25, jump starting the SSD race. They needed to do this because hard disks were becoming such a bottleneck that it was literally holding them back from selling performance CPU's.I predict they will exit the SSD market now that they've propped it up. This drive is clear proof of just that.
Impulses - Wednesday, July 30, 2014 - link
I don't think they ever intended to be a major player in the consumer side, low margins and all that, they jumped in to kickstart the market while other OEM couldn't get out of their own way.FunBunny2 - Wednesday, July 30, 2014 - link
Given that Enterprise SSD was the province of small vendors and RAM SSDs for more than a decade before NAND versions began to be built, Intel really has never had an Enterprise presence in SSD. That they make half-hearted attempts, using third-party controllers no less, means they won't be taken seriously. IBM could have bought their SSD shop, but took Texas Memory instead. There's a lesson in that.Kristian Vättö - Wednesday, July 30, 2014 - link
Saying that Intel has no enterprise SSD presence is just nuts. Last year Intel was the #1 enterprise SSD vendor in terms of revenue.http://regmedia.co.uk/2014/06/13/gartner_ww_ent_ss...
http://regmedia.co.uk/2014/06/13/gartner_ssa_revs_...
IBM's SSA revenue is not even close, let alone the fact that the array market is not the same thing as the enterprise SSD market. Many SSA vendors use drives from the enterprise SSD vendors.
FunBunny2 - Thursday, July 31, 2014 - link
Just because Intel/whoever shifts lots o SATA drek to ABC Corp. to fill up desktops and the occasional windoze/*nix document server doesn't make Intel/whoever an Enterprise Storage player.Enterprise Storage means:
fibre channel
serial attached SCSI
InfiniBand
"The first terabyte class FC SSD systems started shipping in February 2003."
Here: http://www.storagesearch.com/ssd-fc.html
You should spend some quality time with Zolt. You'll learn a lot about SSD.
kaix2 - Thursday, July 31, 2014 - link
what a funny bunny. intel focuses more on enterprise ssd and is the #1 vendor in that space. the 3rd part controllers are for low margin consumer drives.mikk - Wednesday, July 30, 2014 - link
Crucial and Samsung are much more interesting for client SSD users nowadays, Intel is more or less dead in this space.jeffrey - Wednesday, July 30, 2014 - link
Crucial more exciting than SanDisk in client SSD?? The value of the Extreme II and performance of the Extreme Pro are more interesting to me than anything Crucial has (price).hojnikb - Wednesday, July 30, 2014 - link
Have you looked at the Crucial prices recently ?They prety much destroy competition with price/GB.
emn13 - Wednesday, July 30, 2014 - link
Given the overall similarity of modern SSD performance in client workloads, price & reliability are the most important aspects (to me). It's not like even a fairly heavy workload will result in differences even a power user is likely to notice.mapesdhs - Wednesday, July 30, 2014 - link
Wow, are you really saying you'd opt for an MX100 instead of the Sandisk X210? Because
that would be a really weird decision (they're almost the same price here). The X210 is by
far the better product yet is only fractionally more.
Ian.
Samus - Wednesday, July 30, 2014 - link
Ian, you couldn't be more wrong. Although Sandisk makes solid products and is a large OEM partner, they can't come close to competing with crucial\micron manufacturing capacity which inevitably makes Sandisk more expensive. When you consider crucial\micron drives have more features and better reliability than everyone else, the writing is on the wall. Sandisk (and Samsung, Toshiba\OCZ, and perhaps Intel) will continue to be relevant form their product segments but crucial\micron will always be king of ssd volume and reliability.Everyone else will be irrelevant. Kingston, ADATA, PNY, OWC, and so on, will all fail in the consumer space because they are doing what Intel is doing with this very drive, relying on outsourced components. The problem for them is they can't charge what Intel can. They'll be lucky to even break even in the future.
hojnikb - Thursday, July 31, 2014 - link
I don't know where you're from, but here in EU MX100 is almost 110€ cheaper than X210 (YES, 110€ cheaper) for 512GB capacity. So you would have to be insane to fork that much more for only a marginally better performing drive.Burner.Tom - Monday, August 4, 2014 - link
In Slovakia is the price of Crucial MX100 512GB cca 183€ with tax compared to 235€ of SanDisk X210 512GB. For me is the X210 right choice because of better warranty (3y vs 5y) and much better performance.GammaLaser - Wednesday, July 30, 2014 - link
"a study performed by the Ponemon Institute"At first I read that as Pokemon Institute :P
texasti89 - Wednesday, July 30, 2014 - link
Why on earth would someone (client or business) choose this sub-bar product over Samsung new V-NAND drives given they are priced on the same range? This product doesn't even have an Intel chip inside!galfert - Wednesday, July 30, 2014 - link
When I upgrade my client's computers they say, "Samsung? What happened with Intel?" And I tell them, "Oh those Intel SSD days are long over." I like Intel as a company, and they had the resources to keep up with the SSD innovation train. It isn't too late for them. The focus should move to M.2 PCIe with NVMe.Kristian Vättö - Wednesday, July 30, 2014 - link
I wouldn't say Intel isn't innovative in the SSD space as the P3700 was one of the first NVMe drives to ship. It's just that Intel's focus is in the enterprise market and their efforts in that front don't translate to the client market.mmrezaie - Wednesday, July 30, 2014 - link
You are talking about intel. They should be way more innovative with what resources they have, but I assume this is typical intel. They were never satisfying but just dominating.FunBunny2 - Wednesday, July 30, 2014 - link
Intel doesn't have the experience that Texas Memory has, and is the reason IBM bought them rather than Intel. Intel has cpu design and fab expertise. Enterprise SSD? Not so much. It's not a mass production venue. Whether SSD gets to the point of HDD, where the only real difference is QA of parts, is the question. It's still more about design and execution of a very different part.gsvelto - Wednesday, July 30, 2014 - link
I'm really not sure what these drives are good for. Intel already has a line of drives which offer functionality above that of consumer offerings: that's the Pro 1500 series which is in spirit (and price) an excellent successor to the venerable 320 line. That line was relatively popular even among consumer builds and in workstations precisely because it offered extra features not commonly available in consumer drives (such as encryption and power-loss protection). These drives on the other hand have basically no advantages over competitive offerings and a lot of downsides including the high price.hahmed330 - Wednesday, July 30, 2014 - link
This SSD doesn't deserve the prefix pro...JellyRoll - Wednesday, July 30, 2014 - link
"the Pro 2500 is another example of Intel's lack of interest and innovation in the client space."That is an interesting comment, based upon that fact that this drive isn't intended to address that space, period. I think there might be a bit of a lack of understanding between the two markets.
The business-class SSD market is growing very fast right now, and Intel is wise to address it. Who wouldn't? Haven't you noticed every other SSD player is entering this very same space? Perhaps there is a reason for that. Businesses are looking for different metrics than an obviously consumer-slanted writer understands. Reliability above performance, extended and proven track record (SF) makes it much easier to get through qual cycles. There are so many aspects of this market that the Pro addresses, but were ignored.
...and there's more, "The problem is that TCG Opal 2.0 and eDrive will never become consumer friendly features if manufacturers do not include them in their client drives, which is what happens if there is a separate business lineup."
Again, the focus on consumer market, where no other SSD manufacturer is developing these for the consumer market for a reason. These features often add export restrictions, which are totally unneeded for the consumer segment, where maybe 1% will utilize those features, even with broad acceptance.
stickmansam - Thursday, July 31, 2014 - link
Just saying but Samsung has those features, Crucial, Adata, Corsair and maybe PNY and Transcend, maybe OCZ?Kristian Vättö - Thursday, July 31, 2014 - link
"Haven't you noticed every other SSD player is entering this very same space?"Not everyone is. Out of the big players, only SanDisk's and Intel's strategy is to separate the client and business SSDs. Samsung and Crucial are going with an all-in-one approach by implementing the security features to their client SSDs.
Reliability is always a moot point because there is no sufficient data to back it up. Sure Intel has always been reliable but the days of Intel being the only reliable OEM are far behind. Crucial, Samsung and SanDisk can certainly match Intel in terms of reliability.
It's true that I'm not an IT admin but the points Intel are using to sell the drive (security features and reliability) aren't unique.
Michael REMY - Thursday, July 31, 2014 - link
you forget to think as a IT/pro manager : what it matters the more is the price in time. And this "pro" version have a longer warranty than usual public version. In firms, Money always counts more than performances, specially on long time term.
Kristian Vättö - Thursday, July 31, 2014 - link
The SSD 530 carries the same 5-year warranty and if warranty really counts, then the 850 Pro is the king with its 10-year warranty (Extreme Pro has 10 years too but no security features).FunBunny2 - Thursday, July 31, 2014 - link
go to Zolt's site, http://www.storagesearch.com/ and take a look at who's really making real Enterprise SSD. If you recognize even 1% of the names, I'll eat my hat. It's a pork pie, so I suppose it'll taste good, if need be.stickmansam - Thursday, July 31, 2014 - link
that site's top SSD companies is ranked by search volume...gospadin - Friday, August 1, 2014 - link
Exactly. Search volume on that site, and not ranked by sales or profit.FunBunny2 - Friday, August 1, 2014 - link
The "rankings" he publishes are the least, by far and away, interesting thing. How Enterprise SSD companies go about their business is what's important. That, and the technical bits about how DRAM/SSD and NAND/SSD work.At one time, Timex sold the most watches. Not very good ones, of course. Drek SATA SSDs are in the same class. They aren't Enterprise Storage.