I bought one of these in the PAX sale @ PC Case Gear. They are now $10 cheaper.
Specifications:
Capacity: 240GB
Sequential Read: Up to 550MB/s
Sequential Write: Up to 270MB/s
2-Drive RAID 0 Sequential Read: Up to 1020MB/s
2-Drive RAID 0 Sequential Write: Up to 530MB/s
Random 4K Read: Up to 86,000K IOPS
Random 4K Write: Up to 56,000K IOPS
2-Drive RAID 0 Random 4K Read: Up to 136,000K IOPS
2-Drive RAID 0 Random 4K Write: Up to 136,000K IOPS
Form Factor: 2.5in
2% for Paypal or credit card. Nothing extra for direct deposit or money order, though I have no idea why anyone would use money order these days.
Approaching this from a personal stand point:
By not using Paypal I would have had used their 2% additional shipping insurance. High value/ delicate item orders such as the $2100 worth of components I got from them a few months back I wanted that extra security for my order… So I'd say adding 2% in general for orders containing fragile components from them is a relatively safe bet.
Nit picking aside very prompt service and I'd highly recommend them
Picked up a sandisk 256GB for $110 delivered a few months ago. Made a huge difference on my work PC. Does this justify almost a 50% markup over the sandisk? I need another one for a pretty old pc.
Well for a start, your SanDisk doesn't have a supercapacitor. This does, so it'll handle a power failure a lot better. Your SanDisk also likely doesn't have as much reserve NAND as the Intels do either, so if you wind up with an SSD that has more bad factory blocks than average, you get less headroom to cover "shit happens". Though these days that's less of a concern.
Your SanDisk also doesn't have a 5-year warranty, and isn't an enterprise-grade SSD with MLC-HET NAND, unlike the 730 series which is designed for 24/7 operation and a higher MBTF figure.
Does that any of that matter to you? Depends. Performance wise, a SanDisk Ultra II/Plus will be slightly slower than the 730 series, the SanDisk Extreme II will be on the same level.
OEMs like HP, Dell, Lenovo, and Acer that build enterprise-grade workstations, servers, and rack equipment featuring SSDs generally only stick to two SSD brands at the moment: Intel and Micron (a.k.a Crucial).
These two have a reputation for reliability that no other SSD manufacturer does and it's not just myth, there is a lot of anecdotal evidence from those who have gone through dozens or hundreds of SSDs, that Intels just last. Micron in recent years has upped their game substantially and is nowadays considered as reliable as Intel.
Thanks Amar for such a detailed post. No, none of that probably makes any difference to me.
My Ubuntu load time is about 5 secs with teh SanDisk. Java loads in abound abother 5 secs.
The money saved will probably buy a 120GB ssd for the other computer.
Intel SSDs aren't necessarily always the most reliable drives. The Tech Report have been doing an endurance test of a few SSDs and the Intel 335 died after 750TB. The winner of their endurance test has been the Samsung 840 Pro still going strongly and the Kingston HyperX which is starting to show signs of failure as they approach the 1.6 PetaByte mark.
http://techreport.com/review/27062/the-ssd-endurance-experim…
By no means is this a definite conclusion, for obvious size of sample data, but it just shows there are plenty of other players on the market manufacturing reliable SSDs these days. Although I honestly think it all just comes down to which batch the SSD comes from that determines its longevity. That's why the length of warranty is an important factor when picking an SSD.
Only 270mb write, seems pretty slow
I was just about to get the Samsung Evo from this deal; https://www.ozbargain.com.au/node/169090
Is this Intel better than that?
Did you read what Amar89 wrote? How could you even ask that question after his informative post.
Samsung is junk.
how? the tests prove otherwise
I don't see how the Samsung is better, most of that benchmark is subjective.
When it comes to SSD's, I only buy Intel. You are not going to notice any difference in speed in real life, but Intel's stability is unparalleled. Unfortunately this one is aimed at desktop use and has high power consumption, otherwise I'll replace my laptop drive.
Just don't forget the 2% charge they like to tack on. Good site though.