Intel 520 "Cherryville" 120GB SSD Review Storage   Page 1

Reviewer: Jon Coulter Article Publish Date: 4/30/2012

 

 

 

 

 

Introduction

 

 

It seems most everything Intel touches turns to GOLD. Intel recently decided to abandon its own Solid State Processor in favor of LSI SandForce Solid State Processors. Was this a good move? The LSI SandForce 2281 controller while offering unsurpassed performance had been plagued by a bug that causes freezing and the dreaded BSOD. Some of you are undoubtedly aware of this and have maybe even experienced this yourself. For the most part this was finally resolved with the SandForce firmware update 332A. However due to certain odd hardware combinations this was never 100 percent resolved by SandForce themselves.

 

This is where Intel comes in. When Intel decided to incorporate the LSI SandForce 2281 Solid State Processor into their own Solid State Drive offerings they knew they would have to resolve this problem completely because their own reputation would be on the line. So Intel developed its own exclusive firmware for the Fabulous and Famous LSI SandForce 2281 Solid State Processor. Intel created the firmware 400i, and was in fact able to accomplish this daunting task where no one else could. The Intel 520 Series LSI SandForce driven drives do not suffer the rare freeze BSOD that caused such an uproar. I am not sure if other drive manufacturers have been able to accomplish this also but I would imagine they took what Intel did and incorporated it themselves but this is pure speculation on my part.

 

Having the Midas touch so to speak has with it very high expectations; along with the reliability aspect of things an Intel Drive had better perform better than the competition. So does the Cherryville series of drives live up to the Intel name PERFORMANCE wise as well? We are Enthusiasts and absolute reliability truth be told takes a back seat to performance. In our world PERFORMANCE is KING. So how will this new found reliability fare in our world of performance? You are about to find out. I choose to buy a couple of the Intel 520 120GB drives and share the findings with other enthusiast’s because this is the drive I see a lot of accomplished system builders gravitating to. There are very few decent reviews of the 120GB 520 which an Enthusiast can turn to and make an educated decision on whether it is a good buy or not. Today we present you with the Intel 520 120GB dissected in a manner that tells you all you need to know about this drive. Read on to find out if this drive is the “Gold Standard” or not.