The Basics:
And finally, we have a look at
Intel's X25-M 80GB solid state drive. The top of the drive (below left image) has a label which provides a good deal of useful information on the drive, as well as plenty of bar codes, a data matrix label, and regulatory certifications that don't mean much to anyone. Of interest (to me at least) is that the drive is actually thinner than the usual 9.5mm, and Intel had to use a plastic lip around the top surface to bulk it up to the typical size. Take away this plastic lip and the drive is about 7mm thick.
The bottom of the drive (above right image) has a coarse metal finish that actually had me thinking that it was unfinished. On the end you can see the typical layout of SATA data and power connectors.
Configuration:
The Intel X25-M 80GB solid state drive was tested in a system with the following configuration:
» Intel Core i7-920 quad-core processor
» ASUS P6X58D-E LGA 1366 Intel X58 motherboard
» Cooler Master Z600 heatpipe CPU cooler
» Seagate Barracuda XT 2TB SATA 6Gbps hard drive (boot drive)
» Crucial Ballistix Tracer 6GB DDR3-1600 memory kit
» ASUS Radeon HD6870 1GB graphics card
» Nesteq EECS 700 Watt modular power supply
» Toshiba slim DVD drive
» Windows 7 Professional 64-Bit
The screenshot below was taken from
CrystalDiskInfo to show the basics on the drive. We get confirmation of things like the 80GB capacity, that it uses a SATA 300 transfer mode, and that things like TRIM - NCQ - SMART are all supported.
Testing:
All benchmarks were run on the system with the specifications detailed in the previous section of this review, and the benchmark applications were launched from the 2TB Seagate drive listed as the boot drive.
For comparison purposes, the Intel X25-M 80GB solid state drive will be matched up against four other solid state drives that have proven themselves to be solid performers...
» Crucial RealSSD C300 128GB 6Gbps SSD [
review link]
» OCZ Technology 50GB Vertex 2 SSD [
review link]
» Super Talent UltraDrive 32GB FTM32GX25H SSD [
at eWiz.com]
» OCZ Technology 60GB Agility SSD [
review link]
While only the Crucial drive is designed to take advantage of SATA 6Gbps technology, all drives were tested on a SATA 6Gbps controller native to the test system's motherboard.
The benchmarks to be executed on the five drives were pulled from the applications listed below.
» PassMark Performance Test 7.0 Advanced Disk Test
» ATTO Disk Benchmark v2.41
» PCMark Vantage
» AS SSD Benchmark 1.4.3704.27281
