Intel releases more affordable X25-V solid-state drive

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Jos

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Even though it has been available for a while at certain online retailers, Intel today officially announced the 40GB X25-V solid-state drive, a cut-down version of its X25-M model that will sell for a mere $125. The new drive is being marketed as an "entry-level" option for use in netbooks or dual-drive desktop PCs, where it would serve as a boot drive to offer users faster boot times and faster access to key applications.


The X25-V features 40GB of 34nm MLC NAND flash memory and support for Windows 7's TRIM function via the Intel SSD Optimizer. Windows XP and Vista users can also retain the out-of-box performance of this drive with the included SSD Toolbox. Unfortunately unlike its bigger siblings, which boasts sequential read speeds of 250MB/s and write rates of up to 100MB/s, the X25-V is limited to 170MB/s for reads and just 35MB/s for writes.

The 80GB X25-M drive can be had for around $230, so while the price of the X25-V is indeed easier to swallow, the cost per gigabyte is actually higher and you forfeit a great deal of performance.

Perhaps not so coincidentally Intel's announcement comes hot on the heels of rival vendor OCZ's Onyx SSD launch. That drive will give you 32GB of storage capacity along with read and write speeds of 125MB/s and 70MB/s, respectively -- all for a still unspecified sub-$100 price.

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its nice to see SSD price drops but it would be nicer if they dropped the price on actual SSD performance ones.
This is like a slow SSD ... it kinda breaks the piont of getting SSD
 
Nice to see the prices finally coming down on these SSD's. They should be just in line with what I really want to pay come next spring when I do my next upgrade. ;-)
 
I really want these SSD drives go really cheap; otherwise I can't afford it.
I'm tired of slow hard drives.
 
This is a wonderful SSD, the write speeds don't even matter that much. How much are you going to be writing to this drive anyways? It has amazing random IO. SSD's are mostly about read, 170MB/s is awesome for that. People see this as just a "budget SSD" but its actually really good in real world use
 
The very first sentence of the article folks:

Even though it has been available for a while at certain online retailers, Intel today officially announced the 40GB X25-V solid-state drive, a cut-down version of its X25-M model that will sell for a mere $125.

Previous coverage on the drive from last year:

https://www.techspot.com/news/36918-intel-to-launch-lowcost-40gb-ssd-new-enterprise-lineup.html

https://www.techspot.com/news/37382-intels-budgetconscious-40gb-x25v-ssd-appears-online-.html
 
I just can't justify spending more money on meagerly sized hard drives than I did on my video card (talking about the X25-M). When they're this price in 500+GB capacities, then I might fork over the green.
 
"...the X25-V is limited to 170MB/s for reads and just 35MB/s for writes". I think it's not worth of that money? What do you think guys?
 
It may be cheaper, but seems kinda slow for a SSD - and with the whole point of SSD drives being FAST that kinds defeats the purpose to me.

And I have to agree with everyone. Would love one of these drives to put my Windows on and maybe a few programs I use a lot and want a fast load time, but I can't justify the prices they want for an SSD just to save me some time loading, and get a bit better performance. I would like to see the prices on the 32gb or so to come down, instead of larger and larger ones coming out that cost almost as much as my entire PC build.
 
Intel still think they can impose their Intel tax on their SSDs... there are plenty of better SSDs around that price point now. Sure, the read speed is ok but the write speed is pretty lame and will be outdated in a few months.
 
I want an SSD so bad, but I can't justify the price. Even with a price as low as this, you sacrifice the speed, and that's the whole point in buying the thing.

*sits on hands waiting for prices to drop farther*
 
The new drive is being marketed as an "entry-level" option for use in netbooks or dual-drive desktop PCs, where it would serve as a boot drive to offer users faster boot times and faster access to key applications.
Why don't SSD manufacturers get it? On the computers capable of only one hard drive like the netbooks and notebooks, size do matter a lot. If I put this 40 GB SSD on my notebook as a boot drive, then all I got is a boot drive. What about my data files like pictures, music, videos, and documents? Are the manufacturers expecting netbook and notebook users to carry around additional external storage devices? Also, did the manufacturers not think that users would need to install other programs as well. Hello!

Having said all that, you can't make a smaller capacity SSD with inferior performance then charge the consumers higher prices based on size/cost. Am I missing something?
 
Reading the comments it seems as if the price of SSD drives is the major consideration with capacity a close second, also speed of course. For new technology perhaps we should just go out and purchase one to give one a try, to enjoy the silence and the speed available with the right setup.
 
Seems like bad value for money, i'd rather save up and buy a bigger, faster one than splurge on this relatively poor one.
 
I love my X-25M G2. Windows 7, some programs, and a couple games--it's amazing. This would be a great drive to upgrade to if you have a space open in a laptop that has dual HDD bays.
 
I'll still wait till the price comes down, by the way some really good hard drives can get that speed like the WD Black's.
 
Still can't justify the price. My son was upgrading his computer after hoarding cash from Christmas/birthday/other presents and decided that he wanted an SSD. After going over to Micro Center being ready to spend some serious money and looking at the drives we figured that it was not worth it. We ended up getting two 300 GB Velociraptors for around $450 total, sticking them in into the computer in a striped RAID and calling it a day. Came out at around $0.70 per GB vs. about $3.30 per GB for an SSD. The performance difference ultimately did not justify almost five times difference in price. Verdict - I'm waiting for a couple more years for the prices to come down. I would consider it if the price was about $1.00 to $1.50 per GB.
 
Matthew said:
The very first sentence of the article folks:

Even though it has been available for a while at certain online retailers, Intel today officially announced the 40GB X25-V solid-state drive, a cut-down version of its X25-M model that will sell for a mere $125.

My comment was more on the lines of why did Intel wait so long to official announce it, not that there was a mistake (or timing issue) in the article. Maybe they were trying to downplay it until the competition started releasing similar priced drives so not to take from their higher end sales? Not sure.
 
The price is certainly attractive but I would prefer more performance for the money. Even if they had to shrink it down a little to say 32GB to provide a faster drive for the same cost I might consider it. Maybe as more and more of these "cheaper" drives are released we'll see some "shootout" type reviews comparing them.
 
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