Lowest price ever on Amazon
Comes with 5 year Intel Warranty
EDIT: 120GB back in stock and 240GB can be backordered
Enjoy
CamelCamelCamel.
true ozbargainer only needs one reason: Cheap!
This is by all means, ozbargain quote of the year
I think another reason to our partner/wife :p
ozbargain teach people indirectly not to value money. if its cheap it doesn't mean you need it.
Right,
Its only a bargain if you actually wanted the item in the first place. If you didn't want or need it, then it is the opposite of a bargain - wasted money.
Value?
The Intel 520 Series was Intel's first SSD to feature a Sandforce 2281 controller. This controller has powered countless SSDs over the last three years but is now dated and is known to be limited in the area of incompressible write speed. The 120GB Intel 520 scored peak and average sequential read/write speeds of 514/157 and 421/133. These read speeds are good but the peak write of 157 MB/s lags the group leaders average of 313 MB/s by nearly 100%. This relative inability to write lowers the 520's overall effective speed to 403 MB/s or 15% lower than the 459 MB/s achieved by the group leaders. At two years of age the Intel 520 can no longer compete with newer drives, there is far better value available amongst the group leaders.
Thanks for the insightful post. It's always useful to have some background info beyond what the product is and how much it costs.
No problems, I just bought the SanDisk Extreme II 240GB over the weekend $129 delivered. The 240 sized SSD seem to be much better than 120gb overall, after some research.
If you are going to be using it as the primary drive in your system, then it's best to know what you are in for.
I've had 2 of 10 Sandforce based SSD drives fail over the past 3 years. Low usage too. OCZ and Corsair. They were within warranty thankfully. 5 years warranty is a must when purchasing SSD drive IMHO ;)
Where did you buy the SanDisk from?
@tomssy: It was purchased locally from Scorptec. https://www.ozbargain.com.au/search/node/scorptec
They (Scorptec) seem to have listed the deal twice in the last fortnight. I'd suggest signing up for their mailing list to get notified of the special or keep your eyes on Ozbargain's SSD area. A local purchase is better for warranty purposes too, as all SSD's can fail, no matter which brand we have choosen.
@beastontheroad:
Hey thanks for posting, your info is helpful.
Please tell me if you know; which of the major brand SSDs would be considered most reliable of the bunch?
@King Tightarse: The Intel 520 SSD's longevity is rated below. Just be sure you search for the MTBF rating of the solid state drive before you purchase it. Most are rated at around the 2,000,000 hour mark now.
Reliability for Intel 520 Series SSD
— Mean Time Between Failures (MTBF) 1,200,000 hours
The SanDisk Extreme II SSD 240gb is qualified to deliver 80 terabytes of written data with a Mean Time Between Failures (MTBF) of 2,000,000 hours. Regardless of its MTBF, the Extreme II carries a very respectable ten-year warranty.
Get the larger 240gb SSD if you can afford the extra money, they seem to be much better in the reliability and performance. department. Now that they are clearing out last years SSD's to make room for the new models, makes it a good time to purchase a quality one at a good value price.
@beastontheroad:
Thanks Beast,
That is exactly what I will do. For me the huge boost in speed coming over from mechanical totally outshines the leaders race of speed.Any of them will be great for me but the reliability factor is what I care about/
So the SanDisk Extreme II SSD 240gb would be the smart choice. I think I have heard colloquially that the Intel drives are reliable too although I have no figures to quote.
EDIT:
I think the extreme II has a 5 year warranty from my reading.
@King Tightarse: Not a problem, I think the smaller SanDisk Extreme II drives are rated at five years and the larger >240gb models at ten years. Another reason to get the bigger ones. 120gb is not a huge size if you have lots of games and apps installed on it. We are now getting the 240gb at the price the 120gb were at not so long ago. 240gb is now affordable.
Any SSD can fail if it's abused or you are just unlucky as can happen with a HDD. Backup always. Use a standard HDD for Windows temp files and for regularly created and deleted things. Install and run a ram disk and use some ram as the temp caching area for your internet browser. I set my Documents, Picture & Music etc all to be stored on the external USB 3.0 HDD. This helps reduce the amount of needless writes on the SSD drive. I save the SSD for the important things that need to be as quick as possible, the programs and OS. These measures should help make the SSD last much longer. Some people move the Windows swapfile elsewere too.
Be sure to install the SSD toolkit for the drive also if you running older Vista or XP machines as it will trim the drive when needed. Windows 7 & 8 support SSD trim natively so the SSD toolkit is not essential for them.
i thought intel used marvell or a different controller
Where can I send SSD for warranty in Brisbane?
Where did you buy it?
I bought it on Amazon last year.
*sigh the 120 GB price just changed
240gb is much better, if you can afford the extra that is.
Hi I am a bit of novice when it comes to hardware, but I have a Asus Vivobook http://www.asus.com/Notebooks_Ultrabooks/ASUS_VivoBook_S200E…
And was wondering if I can upgrade this to have an SSD? Like the sandisk one mentioned.
Thanks,
Jay
You should be able to but you would want someone with some knowledge to help you - when you swap out your primary hard disk you have to be careful about the way you move data to the new disk because it contains some special information to allow the machine to boot.
The hardware is the easy part, the physical size of the SSD drive is your main enemy here, just be certain that you check the maximum thickness that your notebook PC can handle in it's internal hard drive location. Then be sure the SSD drive you are buying is within that thickness range. Some of the modern Ultrabook's are very thin so check it out and be safe rather than sorry.
If it is a Desktop PC you may need an adapter which is often included within a retail packaged drive's box. That will let you bolt in the 2.5' device in to a 3.5' tray so fitting it can be done easily.
As for the software. Get the Paragon cloning software if you are running Windows 8 with a UEFI Bios. Data transfer migration software should come with the SSD drive in the form of a download. Acronis software came with the SSD drives I have purchased. Typically you'll have to download it from the drive manufacturer's website of course. Acronis didn't work when I tried to transfer the data on my UEFI Bios notebook running on Windows 8 as it wasn't certified to do so by Microsoft apparently.
Paragon's Migrate OS to SSD software on the other hand will handle the Windows 8 UEFI Bios backup issues and make the job easy.
Paragon's site below. Migrate OS to SSD is the one you will need.
http://www.paragon-software.com/technologies/components/migr…
just FYI, 2 years ago was the best drive,.. i havent kept up with new tech, however, as you might or may not be aware of this had a flawed implementation of its encryption, so its not secure,. i perseonally dont care.
the beauty of this drive from memory was the really low IOPS in un sequential 4k reads/writes…. from memory going back a while, it was really good, what you wanted. i think ill order a couple ;-)
and also get the 240gb it had 8 chanels vs 4 in the 120gb so it was alot faster. 480had 8 chanels like the 240gb too so not worth it.
i no longer consider intel top dog in the ssd world, for me it's samsung for (benchmark) performance and crucial for value, as for reliability i would be happy with any of these 3.
120GB has gone up to $93.88US but the 240GB is still $109.99US
click on other sellers, select Amazon.com and you can backorder for when they get more stock
5 Year Warranty is good.
This is still in USD so you're not saving much
Says the 240 can't be shipped to Australia and is showing up as $140 shipped?
click on other sellers, select Amazon.com and you can backorder for when they get more stock
Most importantly, what's the warranty like? Do they allow for local warranty (in Aus) for Intel? I wouldn't want to ship it overseas should there need to be a warranty claim.
The MX100 I bought from ShoppingExpress has now failed on me; thank goodness it was a local purchase
Ouch, I hope that you can get that MX100 replaced ASAP. I used one in my last build and I am missing the software that came with my Samsung 830's that are in my gaming and workstation rigs.
This is a good price for an older drive with a proven track record. I would be more inclined to spend a bit more and get something local (Crucial MX100 or Samsung 840 EVO).
I'd be saying expired now :(
Intel 520 Series Solid-State Drive 240 GB SATA 6 Gb/s 2.5-Inch - SSDSC2CW240A310 (Drive Only) $150.65
Order Summary
Items: $150.65
Shipping & handling: $48.75
Total before tax: $199.40
click on other sellers, select Amazon.com and you can backorder for when they get more stock
1-2 month estimate though
its usually quicker. Its an automatic message when their stock counter reaches 0
the good thing is that if you find a better offer while your waiting for your order to be fulfilled, you can always cancel it as long as status hasn't been changed to awaiting shipment.
C' mon… I can't spend anymore…
I have too much shit already
help… help me damn you all ozbargainers damn you alllll
I would just spend the $10 extra and go for the market leader Samsung 840 EVO
I ordered a couple of the Samsung 840 EVO 120 GB locally for the netbooks only $82. There is cheaper out there but I can walk and grab these ones :))) The Samsung is 7mm thickness too, the Intel 520 listed is 9.5mm thick, they work well with Vista and XP using the SSD Toolkit.
Sold out again, the 120GB
Sneaky b——s have put the price up.
It's now $93.88 US.
Cached copy on google shows it was $59.99 US yesterday
it's now $AUD83.70 delivered for the 120gb.
Great price, now I just need a reason to buy one! :)