Intel 535 vs 530 180GB

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Paul Roland

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Jul 10, 2015
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Hi there, I had some trouble finding a review of Intel 535 although it has been released for quite some time, so I bought one.
Below are the speeds. Apparently, Intel is still way behind competition in terms of performance.
What I am wondering is how can Intel claim speeds like 480 MB/s write when I can barely reach half?

This is an i7-4600m with 8GB ram and fresh installed windows just for this test.
I don't think that 480MB/s will ever be achieved with any 53* drives.
The only reason remaining to purchase this drive would be reliability but even that is a challenge, 73TB and 5 years while Samsung has that for TLC drives and double for the MLC ones.
 

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neo

Well-Known Member
Mar 18, 2015
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Below are the speeds. Apparently, Intel is still way behind competition in terms of performance.
I wouldn't say that. While your benchmark is a tad on the low side, it is expected from a lower capacity drive.
 

Paul Roland

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Jul 10, 2015
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I see so they have the same crap but with lower manufacturing costs.
Improvement only for revenue.
To be fair, they did cut the costs as well. This look too much as an re-branded MX100 to me.
The double endurance (actually line up with pretty much all competitive products) is a welcome addition.
 

Paul Roland

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Jul 10, 2015
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Opened the 535, the NAND chips are SK Hynix.
I guess only the firmware is actually Intel on these new SSDs
 

andrewbedia

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Jan 11, 2013
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Cake

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Dec 1, 2015
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I did a lot of research on the Intel 530, as well as other comparable drives, and also some higher end ones as well. For the price, the Intel 535 seems reasonable... However, other brands are closing the gap in reliability at this price point. I don't really think that this particular product by Intel is going to be significantly more reliable than other SSD's in its price range. Unlike a lot of Intel's other SSD's, the 535 (and the 530 that it is based on) don't have any power loss protection features, something which is particularly useful for reliability in desktops (or in laptops that for some reason don't have a battery).

I was able to get an intel 750 for a good sale price that was only a little bit more than what you can get the 535 for these days, and I found that to be a way more attractive product from the standpoint of reliability. It is to my knowledge, the only current consumer grade SSD with decent power loss protection. Any other SSD with good power loss protection will probably cost the same or more anyway. The 240GB 750 however still has an issue with having very lackluster write speeds, but that wasn't nearly as important to me. The 480GB version doesn't have that problem with its write speeds.

The much older Intel 330 SSD is an example of an SSD that did have excellent power loss protection features, and that is one of the reasons that it is a more reliable drive than SSD's from other manufacturers.

Even Samsung's excellent 850 Pro series SSD's don't have good power loss protection features, though those are otherwise super reliable drives. Outside of power loss events, they're more durable than anything else in their price range, but durability under normal (and safe) conditions is not much of an issue anymore... You want a drive which can handle terrible things happening, like letting your laptop battery die while the computer is still on, or power failures, which often happen more than once a year for many people. However, if you use a battery powered back-up power source for your desktop system, or if you have a good laptop battery which you don't risk running when its about to die, then power loss protection on your SSD won't be nearly as important.

Sorry to not provide any links, but you can always check the reviews on Anandtech.com for different SSD's, that's a great place to start. Among many other things, they will be able to tell you if an SSD has decent power loss protection, or if it is a mostly empty advertising claim.
 
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