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Today we have something very special for SSD of the Week. A new enthusiast class SSD that outshines any of the same form factor PCIe SSDs. By utilizing the new NVMe (Non-Volatile Memory Express) interface, Intel’s 750 series of SSDs are leagues above the current PCIe interface in efficiency and speed. NVMe allows a more direct path to the CPU and allows manufactures a better interface to build on. The Intel 750 is a young cheetah that has just entered the race and yet is already so far ahead.
There are two form factors that the Intel 750 comes in, a 2.5″ 15mm with a SFF-8639 connector and the half-height, half-length (HHHL) add-in card form factor. Capacities are available in 400GB and 1.2TB with MSRPs under $1 per GB, however the going price is currently at a slight premium. The specifications on this SSD are insane. Sequential read and write for the 1.2TB model is rated for up to 2,400/1,200MB/s while random 4K performance is rated for up to 440K/290K IOPS read/write. The 400GB model is rated for up to 2,200MB/s read and 900MB/s write and up to 430K/230K IOPS read/write.
If you took a look at our review of this beast earlier this month, you would see that not only did we achieve the rated speeds, we hit nearly 2.7GB/s read! For the price, this SSD absolutely destroys any of its competition, even though considering the new technology it is rightfully in its own class in the consumer market.
Along with the very impressive specs Intel has bundled an array of features along with this SSD including their updated Intel toolbox. The toolbox has features that include SSD health monitoring, diagnostic scans, a firmware updater, a secure erase function, and a system tuner. Furthermore, the Intel 750 includes your standard TRIM and garbage collection support as well as power-loss protection. Best of all, this SSD is bootable with motherboards with UEFIs that are versions 2.3.1 or newer. Intel has saved hardware encryption for its enterprise class SSDs though. Lastly, the Intel 750 is rated for an endurance up to a maximum of 219TB written and is packaged with a 5-year limited warranty.
Proving even more how amazing this SSD is it even earned our Editor’s choice award. Overall, if you are an enthusiast when it comes to SSDs, this one is a must. Nothing rivals the raw power of this new breed of wild animal that glides across the grass almost frictionless.
Is this for servers or desktops? What is the DWPD?
ah, it is for anything you can fit it in – granted your usage pattern must be compliant.
DWPD ? Intel says 218TB write endurance, 5yr warranty. Capacity of SSD is 0.4TB (400GB). If you do the math: 218/365/5/0.4 = you get the 0.29 DWPD nobody mentions. How’s that ?
Divide total endurance by 365 = get DPWD for one year (= “in order to write 218TB in one year, you must be writing 1.5 DWPD with 400GB capacity drive because 400GB x 365 days x 1.5 times each day = 218TB in a year”).
Divide that result by 5 = get DWPD for life-span of 5 years what is warranty period. You won’t use that drive for so long, sure. Realistically you can replace number 5 in equation above with 2 or 3, because 400GB will be extremely tight for your workloads not in three years, but much sooner.
Divide that result by 0.4TB (capacity of drive) and you have the DWPD you were looking for.
Yes I know 0.29 DWPD for 5 years (or identical calculation netting 0.48 DPWD calculated for 3 years) is nothing to get too much excited. Hang on :
On the other hand, you have to understand DWPD is not the main benefit of this particular model. Considering the target market which definitely was NOT super-heavy server/datacenter class AND PRICE [!!!!!!!], this is one phenomenal NVMe offer regardless of performance, which is staggering of course.
To be honest : there is nothing NVMe in the world in this capacity AND price now. We can’t have everything : performance, capacity, price, endurance. Choose two, maximum three. Not all 🙂
For enterprise offerings with “appealing” DWPD, you have to pay 10x more. That’s it.
Technical note : if you heavily overprovision this drive, say 25% to 33%, you definitely will get at least 5 DWPD endurance. The problem with Intel is it will brick itself (either turn into read-only mode or real brick) after media wear indicator drops down to zero, which basically means “NAND is not guaranteed to hold the data anymore”. Intel would survive much much more than rated endurance, but… this is what it is.
All in all, 750 is model that already got into IT Hall Of Fame. There were/are/will be several phenomenal SSD models, such as Crucial M4, Sammy 840pro, 850pro (the very first 3D commercially available with infinite endurance), Sammy 845DC Pro, Intel 710/720/750, all those P / S3xxx models from Intel… this one, 750, is absolutely there. No discussion about it.
Sean, still hiring editors who understand something about storage and SSDs ? 🙂
I think your math is off:
Keys is one and two-fifth, so how we flip
Thirty-two grams raw, chop it in half, get sixteen, double it times three
We got forty-eight, which mean a whole lot of cream
Divide the profit by four, subtract it by eight
We back to sixteen, now add the other two that ‘Mega bringin through
So let’s see, if we flip this other key
Then that’s more for me, mad coke and mad leak
Plus a five hundred, cut in half is two-fifty
Now triple that times three, we got three quarters of another key
The Firm baby, volume one uhh..
At first glance the $1200 price for the 1.2TB unit seems high. Flash back (no pun intended) 5 years and see what $1200 bought you back then. It’s been an amazing road. The price is actually a real bargain.