Worth buying a first generation Intel X25-M?

Hi everyone,

I recently came across a good deal for a slightly used (laptop has been in an office) first generation 160GB Intel X25-M.

Is it worth buying? I heard that they're reliable, plus 50nm chips have a longer life span, what are your recommendations?

Thank you!

 

If you're getting a great (and I mean GREAT) deal on the price and the shock resistance of an SSD is what you're mainly looking for, then it could be okay for a not too demanding usage scenario. (Think 'netbook' usage).

If you're thinking that you'll get 2011 levels of SSD type performance, you'll be sorely disappointed.

My best offer for an SSD like this would be in the mid/high double digits (certainly less than $80) even though this drive brand new was over $800 in 2008.

 

Have a look at this article:

Tom's Hardware's SSD Hierarchy Chart : Best SSDs For The Money: October 2011

Quote:

"As a point of comparison, a file operation completes 85% faster on a low-end SSD than it does on a high-end hard drive, but there is only an 88% speed difference between a high-end hard drive and a high-end SSD. That why you shouldn't let less aggressive benchmark results at the low-end deter you from making the switch. You don't have to have the best SSD to get great performance relative to a hard drive."

Based on this information, I would pay up to at least $150 for this SSD. I have the 80GB and 40GB versions of it, and even though the 40GB version is supposed to have roughly half the performance of the 80GB version, I don't feel it in actual use. The 80GB version should have the same performance with the 160GB version, and it is definitely fast enough for normal use.

Just be sure to use Intel SSD Toolbox to check the status of this SSD, it will tell you information like total amount of data written and remaining life in percentage.

In my opinion, Intel SSDs have the best reliability and should not be compared with other brands directly on second hand market, although they may have better performance.

 

Thanks for the replies!

It's $110, which is cheaper than any other 100+ GB SSD, and I don't care about maximum performance - I just need great random read/write times (I'm pretty happy with ~90 MB/s sequential read and ~60 MB/s write on my HDD, so I don't think that'll be a problem).

I need a system drive, but my main concern is reliability (I've never had a hard drive fail on me), although I could just use it via ESata to run virtual machines...

 

Yup I bought my Intel G1 80 GB off Ebay for 110 brand new. Works great in my X200 Tablet with Windows XP. Definitely worth it.

 

I'm not an SSD enthusiast or anything, but I've got an identical SSD and I'm pretty thrilled with it. Even though I usually keep it over 2/3 full, it still performs way faster than an HDD. For me, that's enough.

At $110, it seems like a no-brainer to me. If you don't like it, you can turn it around on eBay for $200-250 easily.

 

For $110 and the ability to run it off of eSATA for your VM's, I would consider going this route. I would still try to get it for less though...

Just know from experience that a gen1 160GB X25-M will really slow down (even in a Win7 system w/8GB RAM) to below HDD levels (and note: not at my type of 'extreme' usage). When you're paying (even in the low...) triple digits for a storage sub-system - this is unacceptable to me.

As long as you are able to keep the % filled to less than 50% of the drive (less than 75GB effectively) I think that with your VM usage you will be further ahead with this drive (which will be basically a multi-tasking scenario - where SSD's shine).

If you need to use much more of the ~149GB capacity (more than 80% filled...), I am afraid that the overall performance will fall below the $110 + your time to setup the new drive's 'cost' very quickly (within a few months).

I agree with oneday (post #3) to download the Intel SSD Toolbox 3.01 on the notebook it is installed currently in and see what the Smart data tells you (the total writes and reads in TB's is what I would be interested in).

See:
http://downloadcenter.intel.com/Detail_Desc.aspx?agr=Y&DwnldID=18455

I know that $110 doesn't buy a current SSD - especially one at a usable 160GB (nominal) capacity. But that doesn't mean that spending real money (and time!) on almost 4 year old technology will necessarily give you a (sustained) performance advantage from your current setup.

Am I suggesting to skip this 'deal'? No!

I'm saying 'thread lightly' and know the limitations and pitfalls along with the potential performance gains you can realize with this specific situation.

That is why throwing your VM's onto this SSD via an eSATA enclosure seems so appealing to me: the 'cost' in terms of your time is very, very low and the gains will be readily (and consistently) apparent).

Hope some of this helps?

 

@tiller
sorry this is a bit off topic, but it is related to older Intel technology.
Is it advisable to buy a cheap(180 € 64 GB X25-E for a SATA II RAID0 setup?
Knowing that in the near future IRST will support RAID0 Trim which the firmware of the X25-E does not?

 

maximinimaus,

I don't see that as cheap nor advisable. But my usage patterns are very different from yours, I'm sure.

What I firmly believe is not to base current decisions on future 'promises'. Not even from a company like Intel (not that they've even made such a 'promise', officially).

To your point that the X25-E's Firmware doesn't support TRIM (I'm almost 100% positive that they never will be upgraded at this point in time) - this makes waiting/hoping for the RAID enabled IRST drivers almost moot, imo.

What usage do you intend for these drives?

If anything workstation related, I would say they are a poor investment. If the task is server/database based, then they may be worth considering (even without TRIM support).

Good luck.

 

TRIM isn't a big issue, the G1 have special firmware to deal with it. Plus my X200 Tablet has XP which doesn't not support TRIM either. It takes years and years before you notice the slow down of not having TRIM, and you could do a secure erase or buy a new SSD at that point..

 

Tsunade Hime, I think you need to re-read this:

See:
AnandTech - The SSD Relapse: Understanding and Choosing the Best SSD


Years? I guess it depends on how much you notice things like this and also how much you push your storage sub-systems.

For me, I noticed this slowdown in minutes/hours (before all the installations of all my software was finished and fully updated).

 

I don't do much I/O on my tablet, it is an on the go laptop. If performance got down to a level I did not enjoy, I would secure erase it and restart. But of course this does not apply to most people.

I'd say the 80% of people buying SSDs for their computers don't actually "need" it. I am buying SSDs for everything just for the reliability/resistant to shock factor. Also getting a usable desktop in 15 seconds is nice. Tiller, your needs seems different than most users on this forum. Perhaps you should save up for that 600 GB 320 series.