Intel SSD 730 (480GB) Review: Bringing Enterprise to the Consumers
by Kristian Vättö on February 27, 2014 12:00 PM EST- Posted in
- Storage
- SSDs
- Intel
- Intel SSD 730
The days of Intel being the dominant player in the client SSD business are long gone. A few years ago Intel shifted its focus from the client SSDs to the more profitable and hence alluring enterprise market. As a result of the move to SandForce silicon, Intel's client SSD lineup became more generic and lost the Intel vibe of the X-25M series. While Intel still did its own thorough validation to ensure the same quality as with its fully in-house designed drives, the second generation SandForce platform didn't allow much OEM customization, which is why the SSD 520 and other SandForce based Intel SSDs turned out to be very similar to the dozens of other SandForce driven SSDs in the market.
The SSD market has matured since the X-25M days and a part of the maturing process involves giving up profits. Back in 2007-2008 the SSD market (both client and enterprise) was a niche with low volume and high profits, so it made sense for Intel to invest in custom client-oriented silicon. There wasn't much competition and given Intel's resources and know-how, they were able to build a drive that was significantly better than the other offerings.
The high profits, however, attracted many other manufacturers as well and in the next few years Intel faced a situation it didn't like: profit margins were going down, yet bigger and bigger investments had to be made in order to stay competitive in the client market. OCZ in particular was heavily undercutting Intel's pricing and big companies with technological and scale advantage like Intel tend not to like the bargain game because at the end of the day it's not as profitable for them. The enterprise market is a bit different in this regard because price is not usually the commanding factor; instead the focus is on reliability, features and performance, which made it an easy choice for Intel to concentrate its resources on covering that market instead.
For the majority of consumers this change in focus was negligible since the likes of Micron and Samsung had started paying attention to the retail consumer SSD market and Intel was no longer the only good option available. However, enthusiasts were left yearning for an Intel SATA 6Gbps design as many had built brand loyalty for Intel with the X-25M. In late 2012 the wishes materialized but to their disappointment only in the form of an enterprise SSD: the DC S3700. This verified that enterprise was Intel's first priority but given that it was a SATA 6Gbps rather than a PCIe design, it left hope for a more client-orientated in-house Intel solution. Fast-forward to today and that solution is now here. Please meet the SSD 730, Intel's new client flagship.
Adopting the platform from the DC S3500/S3700, the SSD 730 is Intel's first fully in-house designed client drive since the SSD 320. The SSD 730 is not just a rebranded enterprise drive, though, as both the controller and NAND interface are running at higher frequencies for increased peak performance. While the branding suggests that this is an enterprise drive like the SSD 710, Intel is marketing the SSD 730 directly to consumers and the DC S3xxx along with the 900 series remain as Intel's enterprise lineups. And in a nod to enthusiasts, the SSD 730 adopts the Skulltrail logo to further emphasize that we are dealing with some serious hardware here.
Capacity | 240GB | 480GB |
Controller | Intel 3rd Generation (SATA 6Gbps) | |
NAND | Intel 20nm MLC | |
Sequential Read | 550MB/s | 550MB/s |
Sequential Write | 270MB/s | 470MB/s |
4K Random Read | 86K IOPS | 89K IOPS |
4K Random Write | 56K IOPS | 74K IO |
Power (idle/load) | 1.5W / 3.8W | 1.5W / 5.5W |
Endurance | 50GB/day (91TB total) | 70GB/day (128TB total) |
Warranty | Five years | |
Availability | Pre-orders February 27th - Shipping March 18th |
Intel is serious about the SSD 730 being an enterprise-class drive for the client market as even the NAND is pulled from the same batch as Intel's MLC-HET NAND used in the S3700 and the endurance rating is based on JEDEC's enterprise workload. JEDEC's SSD spec, however, requires that client SSDs must have a data retention time of one year minimum whereas enterprise drives must be rated at only three months, which gives the S3500/S3700 a higher endurance. MLC-HET also trades performance for endurance by using lower programming voltages, resulting in less stress on the silicon oxide.
Intel SSD 730 | Intel SSD 530 | Intel SSD DC S3500 | Intel SSD DC S3700 | |
Capacities (GB) | 240, 480 | 80, 120, 180, 240, 360, 480 | 80, 120, 160, 240, 300, 400, 480, 600, 800 | 100, 200, 400, 800 |
NAND | 20nm MLC | 20nm MLC | 20nm MLC | 25nm MLC-HET |
Max Sequential Performance (Reads/Writes) | 550 / 470 MBps | 540 / 490 MBps | 500 / 450 MBps | 500 / 460 MBps |
Max Random Performance (Reads/Writes) | 89K / 75K IOPS | 48K / 80K IOPS | 75K / 11.5K IOPS | 76K / 36K IOPS |
Endurance (TBW) |
91TB (240GB) 128TB (480GB) |
36.5TB |
140TB (200GB) 275TB (480GB) |
3.65PB (200GB) 7.3PB (400GB) |
Encryption | - | AES-256 | AES-256 | AES-256 |
Power-loss Protection | Yes | No | Yes | Yes |
Continuing with the enterprise features, there is full power-loss protection similar to what's in the S3500/S3700. I'm surprised that we've seen so few client SSDs with power-loss protection. Given the recent studies of power-loss bricking SSDs, power-loss protection should make a good feature at least in the high-end SSDs.
Test System
CPU |
Intel Core i5-2500K running at 3.3GHz (Turbo and EIST enabled) |
Motherboard | AsRock Z68 Pro3 |
Chipset | Intel Z68 |
Chipset Drivers | Intel 9.1.1.1015 + Intel RST 10.2 |
Memory | G.Skill RipjawsX DDR3-1600 4 x 8GB (9-9-9-24) |
Video Card |
Palit GeForce GTX 770 JetStream 2GB GDDR5 (1150MHz core clock; 3505MHz GDDR5 effective) |
Video Drivers | NVIDIA GeForce 332.21 WHQL |
Desktop Resolution | 1920 x 1080 |
OS | Windows 7 x64 |
Thanks to G.Skill for the RipjawsX 32GB DDR3 DRAM kit
96 Comments
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emn13 - Sunday, March 2, 2014 - link
It's interesting to note that both Crucial's M500 and intel's 730 have power-loss protection and a fairly high idle power. Does power-loss protection imply a high idle power?Kristian Vättö - Sunday, March 2, 2014 - link
The M500 supports low-power states (HIPM+DIPM) so in a mobile environment the power consumption is much lower: http://www.anandtech.com/bench/SSD/732hojnikb - Wednesday, March 5, 2014 - link
Is this related to devsleep or do older chipsets support that kind of low power consumption aswell ?Because in some reviews, m500 has quite high idle power consumption...
Kristian Vättö - Wednesday, March 5, 2014 - link
This isn't DevSleep, it lower the idle power consumption even more. This is just HIPM+DIPM (Host/Device Initiated Link Power Management), which is supported by older chipsets as well. However, note that only mobile chipsets support HIPM+DIPM, which is why the power consumption is significantly higher when tested in a desktop environment (like most reviewers do).amddude10 - Friday, November 28, 2014 - link
The power loss protection in crucial drives like the m500 is supposedly very incomplete, and not nearly as good as it is with the 730, or in enterprise drives, so its comparing apples and oranges. I would however say that SSD's which are going to be used in laptops are in much less need of power loss protection, but more in need of low power consumption, whereas SSD's that are intended for desktop use don't need low power consumption, and are in much higher need of power loss protection.CeceliaAFolger - Sunday, March 2, 2014 - link
hywoolfe9998 - Sunday, March 2, 2014 - link
This doesn't strike me as an especially impressive product given what is already out there. Frankly, it seems that SSD technology has settled to the point where the only thing that matters any more is price/capacity. Find me half TB SSD for $200 and I'll care.hojnikb - Wednesday, March 5, 2014 - link
U can get m500 480GB for ~250$ or less if u find a deal. Thats pretty cheap, if you ask me..RAYBOYD44 - Monday, March 3, 2014 - link
til I looked at the receipt for $5432 , I accept that...my... cousin had been truley bringing home money part-time on there computar. . there aunts neighbour had bean doing this for only about 1 year and just paid for the mortgage on their home and purchased BMW M3 .Neo Zuko - Monday, March 3, 2014 - link
I was a big fan of the Sata II Intel SSDs but for Sata III I switched to the Samsung 830 Pro and then the Samsung 840 Pro as my SSD of choice. Seems it's time change up again to the SanDisk Extreme II (which was mentioned to be the new favorite SSD) and or the Intel 730 here.However the Intel 730, for all it does well, does not seem to be completely optimized for the average home PC workload and the top performance is suffering. And you can't use it in a laptop. These seem to be big deal breakers to me. Given those limitations it seems the SanDisk Extreme II would still be Anandtech's favorite SSD. Did I get that right? And would the SanDisk Extreme II work well in a PS4 without trim? And as an aside, I would not mind a better paragraph as to why the SanDisk is a favorite. Is it the near Intel constancy combined with the fast performance - like a best of both worlds thing? Also when is SanDisk releasing that enterprise lite version of the Extreme II with power failure features?