News - Intel launches Solid State Drive 730 Series

[HEXUS]

Flagship consumer SSD for PC enthusiasts uses overclocked Intel 3rd gen controller.

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[Devastater6194]

lets be honest, as long as you go for a decent brand, you don't need to worry about speed do you. Which leaves reliability which Intel and Samsung pretty much have down to the tee.
The 5 year warranty is certainly enticing though.

[ik9000]

You'd want the Samsung Pro over the Evo though if you really want reliability long-term. TLC nand in the EVO is less durable, though many have gone to pains to state for the average user it is perfectly sufficient.

[CampGareth]

looking at the power consumption there, definitely not a replacement for my Intel 335 240GB, a generally nice drive though. Had two of those intels for the past year btw and had absolutely no problems ever, then again I can say the same for my one samsung 840 120GB.

[azrael-]

I thought Intel used Sandforce controllers now (as opposed to its own controllers). But "overclocking" an SSD ...that seems pretty ridiculous. As stated above the higher endurance and longer warranty sound enticing, though.

[this_is_gav]

looking at the power consumption there, definitely not a replacement for my Intel 335 240GB, a generally nice drive though. Had two of those intels for the past year btw and had absolutely no problems ever, then again I can say the same for my one samsung 840 120GB.

It uses about around zero power. It's probably around the same as an LED torch running off a single AA battery.

[crossy]

looking at the power consumption there, definitely not a replacement for my Intel 335 240GB, a generally nice drive though. Had two of those intels for the past year btw and had absolutely no problems ever, then again I can say the same for my one samsung 840 120GB.

I was just about to laugh at you for being concerned about power consumption on an SSD, but then I looked at the figures and you've got a point. A quick google search brought up this article on Tom's Hardware about the Samsung EVO drives. Taking the 500GB EVO (which happens to be my "apps" drive at the moment) v's the 480GB Intel 730, the max power draw is 3.15W v's 5.5W but the idle power is 0.31W v's 1.5W.

Leading me to the conclusion that if you were using that large Intel in a laptop/ultrabook then you'd be better advised - from the point of view of battery life - to replace with a 840EVO instead. If, as the article says, the EVO is also faster and cheaper, then I really can't see a justification for the Intel drive unless those two extra years of warranty are a big deal. Then again, power consumption on the 840Pro is also much lower - and that can match the Intel warranty.

Sorry if this sounds like the ravings of a Samsung fan boy, but I'm wondering why I would want to buy the Intel drive, other than for the privilege of having an "Intel SSD Inside" sticker on my case rather than the "Samsung SSD Inside" one that's there at the moment.

Oh, and at the risk of doing a "Murray Walker", I've got one OCZ Vertex 2E and two Samsung 830 SSD's here and all are still working fine. The two 830's are boot drives for laptops (one running Windows 7, the other Ubuntu) and the speed increase was spectacular. Just recently upgraded my Windows gaming system to a 120GB and a 500GB 840 EVO, the 120GB replacing that Vertex 2E. Strangely enough I'm not seeing much in the way of speed boost - which is a bit of a disappointment.

[kompukare]

Yes, 1.5W idle puts it into 'do not use with laptops' category of SSDs. You'd think it must be hard work designing an SSD with no moving parts which manages to use more power while idle than a 7,200 RPM 2.5" HDD but Intel are not the only ones to have managed that as I remember that those Kingston V200's were similar for instance.

Fine for desktop use of course but unless someone is fond of the Intel sticker or the skull logo (which someone in the AT review pointed out basically says "Warning: not to be used in an enterprise setting"), there are far better choices out there.

[lumireleon]

intel has been competing but samsung is always better in terms of reliability

[crossy]

My Samsung SSDs are amazing, but still hover around the most expensive end of the market

You buying the Pro ones then? Because I've always found the Evo's to be very competitively priced - a situation helped no doubt by some etailer always having them on discount. Heck, I get the daily sale bulletins from Aria and there's usually an 840 in there.