Intel 310 Series 80GB SSD Review – A New Way To Look at Notebooks!

Our featured picture does a great job of portraying how truly small Intels new 310 Series 80GB SSD really is.

It offers the punch of the X-25m in 1/8th of the size and Intel is gambling that this is going to add a whole new dimension to notebook configurations.  First up to bat with the 310 will be new Lenovo Thinkpads destined for market in 2011 but don’t think other oems aren’t far behind.

The 310 series SSD started shipping in units of 1000 to oems in December with prices at $99 (40GB) and $179 (80GB) per and don’t be surprised to see a healthy premium on these new notebooks when combined with a hard drive.  Its a combination that may be the best push forward in bringing the SSD into mainstream sales as now anyone can have the power of the SSD with the storage of a hard drive in a factory purchased laptop.

CONSUMER ALERT

We guarantee that, even after reading this warning right off, there will be people hunting down this SSD and trying to throw it into their laptop in place of their wifi card.  Some will even try to throw it into one of the many mini-PCIE adapters available such as the one we used in our review of the Renice KEVLAR mini-PCIE SSD.

They will not work.

This SSD came with a ‘transposer’ which was created specifically to allow reviewers to review this card and it only works with the 310.  We know because we tried.  First we slid the Renice KEVLAR mini-PCIe into the transposer unsuccessfully and then we took a crack at sliding the 310 SSD into the Runcore mini-PCIE adapter and it doesn’t work.  Laptops will be configured to work with the Intel 310 mSATA SSD and maybe we will even see one get ahead of the game and somehow enable present laptops to house the 310 successfully.

ARTICLE UPDATE: The SSD reviewed here is now available at e-tailors for $189 and there are reports that is is a simple plug and play into available mPCIe slots of Dell M4500, M6400 and M6500 series.

SPECIFICATIONS

Model Name	Intel® Solid-State Drive 310 Series
Capacity	40GB and 80GB
NAND flash components	34nm Intel® NAND Flash Memory Multi-Level Cell Components
Bandwidth	Sustained Sequential Reads Up to 170 MB/s (40GB) Up to 200 MB/s (80GB) Sustained Sequential Writes Up to 35 MB/s (40GB) Up to 70 MB/s (80GB)
Read latency	65 microseconds (40GB and 80GB)
Write latency	110 microseconds (40GB) 75 microseconds (80GB)
Random I/O Operations per Second (IOPS)¹	Random 4KB Reads Up to 25 K IOPS (40GB) Up to 35 K IOPS (80GB) Random 4KB Writes Up to 2.5 K IOPS (40GB) Up to 6.6 K IOPS (80GB)
Interface	Compatible with SATA 1.5Gb/s and 3Gb/s
Form factor, height and weight	Full-sized mSATA form factor (50.80 mm x 29.85 mm) Less than 4.85 mm thick Weighs less than 10 grams
Life expectancy	1.2 million hours Mean Time Before Failure (MTBF)
Power consumption	Active: 150mW Typical² Idle: 75mW Typical
Operating shock	1,500G / 0.5ms
Operating temperature	0°C to 70°C
Compatibility and compliance	SATA Revision 2.6 compliant. Compatible with SATA 3.0 Gb/s with Native Command Queuing and SATA 1.5 Gb/s interface rates. This product certified by the following organizations:
RoHS compliance	Meets the requirements of European Union (EU) RoHS Compliance Directives and the Halogen Free³ Compliance Directives
Product Health Monitoring	Self-Monitoring, Analysis and Reporting Technology (S.M.A.R.T.) commands Intel® Solid-State Drive Toolbox

Pg 1 – Introduction and Specifications

Pg 2 – SSD Build and Test Protocol

Pg 3 – Benchmarks

Pg 4 – More Benchmarks

Pg 5 – PCMark Vantage Testing and Final Thoughts

DISCUSS THE REVIEW HERE!