Benchmarks: CrystalDiskMark 3.0
Here we see that the Intel SSD 520 Series 240GB delivers strong sequential read performance for a SandForce SF-2281 drive. With a bandwidth of 503.9MB/s it matched the ADATA S511 240GB while it was slightly faster than the OCZ and Kingston drives. The only SF-2281 drive to outdo Intel was the premium Vertex 3 Max IOPS drive.
The sequential write performance was also strong as the Intel SSD 520 Series 240GB was only slightly slower than the ADATA S511 240GB which is the fastest SF-2281 drive we have seen in this test. With a throughput of 309.5MB/s the Intel SSD 520 Series 240GB was 8MB/s faster than the OCZ Vertex 3 240GB.
The random 512K read performance of the Intel SSD 520 Series 240GB was also strong beating similar SF-2281 drives from ADATA, Kingston and OCZ. The Intel SSD 520 Series 240GB was just a fraction slower than the Crucial m4 512GB in this test.
The random 512K write performance was also strong and again the Intel SSD 520 Series 240GB came second only to the ADATA S511 240GB while it was faster than the OCZ and Kingston drives.
Strangely the random 4K-QD32 read performance of the Intel SSD 520 Series 240GB wasn't great though we have seen mixed results from SF-2281 based drives in this test. For example although the SSD 520 Series 240GB was found to be 12% slower than the OCZ Vertex 3 240GB it was 19% faster than the ADATA S511 240GB.
Although the Intel SSD 520 Series 240GB displayed average random 4K-QD32 read performance the write result was amazing. Here the SSD 520 Series 240GB produced a throughput of 264.8MB/s making it 6% faster than the Vertex 3 240GB and 11% faster than the ADATA S511 240GB.