480GB Intel 540 Series SSD $179 @ Umart

180

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Lresisting the urge on 24/09/2016 - 22:24 umart.com.au (316 clicks)
Last edited 25/09/2016 - 00:32 by 1 other user

Picked one of these up today from their West Ryde store in Sydney. Was going to get a Samsung 850 EVO which may still be 'best in class' despite this new model from Intel. Went Intel as it is almost the same price as the current special on the Samsung from Kogan/DSE, and when I tried they were out of stock. Also, they only came with standard 12 mth warranty at that price.

• Same 5 year warranty as locally purchased 850 EVOs
• Higher MTBF 1.6M hours (850 EVO: 1.5M)
• Supports TRIM and SMART monitoring (as per 850 EVO)
• Full AES 256-bit encryption (as per 850 EVO)
• 7mm thick (as per 850 EVO)
• Claims to beat the Samsung on speed:
  Sequential Read (up to) 560 MB/s
  Sequential Write (up to) 480 MB/s
  Random Read (8GB Span) (up to) 78000 IOPS
  Random Write (8GB Span) (up to) 85000 IOPS
  Latency - Read 50 µs
  Latency - Write 50 µs
  Power - Active 90 mW Typical
  Power - Idle 50 mW Typical

Those are the Pros. Not sure what Cons are other than:

1. Not 3D NAND, Hynix TLC instead… There is some conjecture around this at present
2. It formats to 480GB. maybe Samsung's gives 500GB (That's what the 850 EVO has on the box, so imagine that is what they format to). May not be so bad as Intel's keeps more memory cells in reserve and thus may be more durable (?) At 480GB from 16x32GB NAND chips, it is over provisioned by ~7%.
3. Colour is silver, not black (is this bad?)

Special pricing lasts a little longer, I think.

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Umart

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  Diji1 on 25/09/2016 - 01:10

  +2

  Went Intel as it is almost the same price as the current special on the Samsung from Kogan/DSE

  No longer available.

  Not sure what Cons are

  This drive is thrashed by the Smasung 850 EVO 500GB in certain situations: for example 30GB average file transfer speed 130MB/s vs ~480MB/s

  http://www.thessdreview.com/our-reviews/intel-540s-series-ss…

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    Nilfunds on 25/09/2016 - 08:42

    thanks for the link!

    of course after purchase one can be a little 'blinker vision' to cons

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    garage sale on 25/09/2016 - 09:57

    how many 30gb files do people have and how often are they copied. also depends if you use the std copy or things like rich copy .

    bigger issue is things like longevity of the flash and data retention

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    resisting the urge on 25/09/2016 - 23:51

    These SSD reviews don't control the science very well. I've heard experts whine about how the stats the review sites measure as highly suspect and spurious, so I take those large file numbers with a pinch of salt. That said, I do feel the 3D NAND makes the Samsung a fundamentally better disk.

    Just not sure its worth an extra coin, let alone 10% more of it!

    • 

      Diji1 on 26/09/2016 - 00:53

      Ignore the benchmark, go with feelings, good call.

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        resisting the urge on 26/09/2016 - 10:37

        Not really. Fast large file transfers would be nice, but not vital to me. Most of the work this will do is as a backed up system disk, so mostly it will do small R/W and the occasional boot. The data volumes are a separate cached array anyhow, replacing those platters with silicon will happen one day but only when I can afford very reliable silicon (disks can usually repair a few times before they fail too badly whereas silicon gives you little chance of recovery let alone repair). Plus with numerous stripes the cost of doing that means it cannot happen too soon anyhow.

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  hollykryten on 25/09/2016 - 09:44

  $10 discount from the RRP is such a huge discount!.

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    resisting the urge on 26/09/2016 - 00:11

    I saw them at $215 (http://www.ht.com.au/part/BE228-Intel-Solid-State-Drive-540S…), though other places will be cheaper than them.

    Where is the retail price you quote?

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      hollykryten on 27/09/2016 - 09:16

      HT is inflating the price. It's essentially a retail store. For example you know how Harvey Norman inflates prices on computer parts even higher than RRP.

      From the product page on Umart:

      RRP $189.0

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        resisting the urge on 28/09/2016 - 23:15

        I think that is their normal price, not RRP. MSY are $198