Intel 510 Series 120 GB SATA Version 3 2.5-Inch Solid-State Drive
Review by Stephen S. Kahn : Amazing new technology!

As an engineer who remembers IBM's 30 inch platter hard disk drives, this new SSD from Intel's 34 nm line is simply amazing. The ability to emulate a mechanical hard disk drive is at the heart of this technology, but the reason it will sell is SPEED! Quiet, cold, and FAST.

My Windows 7 Experience Index for disk performance went from 5.9 (HDD) to 7.5 (SSD). Boot times are twice as fast and windows just snap into place. When you click on a desktop Icon, it opens almost before you can take your finger away from the mouse button.

This upgrade is by far the most impressive I've experienced in over thirty years of trying to improve computer speed.

The only negative is the fact that the free cloning software couldn't handle Dell's Reserved and Recovery partitions and the computer would not boot. I was successful, however, in using ShadowProtect to Restore an Image to the new SSD.

This new Intel SSD is the most FUN device I've ever put into a PC.

Intel 510 Series 120 GB SATA Version 3 2.5-Inch Solid-State Drive
Review by Justin Dailey : My First Solid State Drive

I'm no techie (although I am sensitive to sluggishness and appreciate systems that are snappy / responsive) and I can't quote specs or provide comparison data, so you'll have to take this review from a layperson's point of view. That being said, I hope it is still helpful.

SUMMARY: If you don't want to read the novel, just know that this product (or another SSD) is a must buy. If you're only going to read one other section, check out the "*Speed:" section below.

*Application: I installed this drive in my HP-DV7T-6000 laptop running Windows 7 64 bit Home Premium. This is now my boot drive. My laptop also has a 750 GB 5400 RPM traditional drive for larger data files.

*Size (GB): 120 GB should be more than enough for me. After installing Windows 7 and all my applications (a fairly short list), downloading ~30 GB of music files and ~10GB of pictures, and partitioning ~20 GB for backup/other data (all of this is on the SSD), I still have ~30GB of extra space. That would be a little tight if I didn't have the 750 GB secondary drive but I could probably get by. You might want to consider a larger drive if this will be your only drive.

*Ease of setup: If you're not going to be making this your boot drive (which would be CRAZY!), this should be as simple as plugging it in.

However, it is also a fairly straightforward procedure to replace your existing boot drive. I should disclose that I had access to a tower where I could plug my old drive and new drive simultaneously. However after doing that, it was as simple as plugging both drives in, installing the Intel provided free transfer program, selecting the source drive and the destination drive, selecting auto-partition, and pressing start. 30 minutes later, I was in business.

for some strange reason, HP had installed four partitions on my existing drive. No problem though...the Intel program knew which partitions to shrink to make everything fit on my new drive (they also give you the option to self-select your partition sizes).

*Speed: Prior to this install, my Windows Experience Index was a 5.9. This jumped it up to a 6.5 (3D graphics bottleneck). What does that translate to in real life? I did a benchmark before and after test to measure. The test measured the time it took to perform a cold boot, log in to Windows (fast because I'm using a fingerprint sensor), start the Zune software, press play on the first song I could, and actually have the song start playing.

While I realize there are some undesirable variables in that test, the results are still OUTSTANDING.

With my old 5400 RPM HDD, the test took 1 minute and 24 seconds.

With my new SSD, the test took 24 seconds.

That's 3.5x faster!

And I have noticed other drastic speed improvements in real life computing situations. I can fully launch Google Chrome and have it be fully loaded up in <1 second. I can randomly skip through photos/songs almost instantaneously. In fact, as another test (sadly I didn't do a "before" test-only an "after"), I went along my my taskbar and clicked on every application I have pinned AS QUICKLY AS I WAS ABLE (Word 2010, Excel 2010, Zune Software, Windows Media Player, Internet Explorer 9, Firefox 4, and Chrome 11). By the time I clicked the last icon and waited LITERALLY one second longer, all of the applications were fully launched and ready. Total estimated (I didn't actually time it) launch time for these 7 applications = closer to 5 seconds than 10 -- AMAZING!

This would have probably taken over 30 seconds on my old drive.

*Other perks: It is completely silent and is substantially more rugged than a traditional drive. It uses less battery power than my old drive and Intel drives are apparently very reliable.

*Overall: Simply put, this is the most impressive computer upgrade I have ever seen. Worth every penny!

Intel 510 Series 120 GB SATA Version 3 2.5-Inch Solid-State Drive
Review by Roy Khoury : Good product

Piece of cake installation (both hardware and cloning)

Would drastically boost your OS and major programs u run.

Windows rating system score = 7.8 as opposed to my older hdd @ 4.3

Intel 510 Series 120 GB SATA Version 3 2.5-Inch Solid-State Drive
Review by Kenneth Brady : Fast boot and application startups!

This is my first solid state drive, so I can only compare it to standard hard drives, and this baby is FAST. I'm using it as my system drive, and Windows 7 boots in 10 seconds. My applications installed on the drive start up and run fast as well. 250 GB only goes so far, so I have a second, standard hard drive for storing data - pictures, video, and audio files.

I've only been using this for a week, so I cannot comment on long-term reliability. Given the lack of moving parts, I expect this drive to outlive the laptop that it is inside, but time will tell.

Intel 510 Series 120 GB SATA Version 3 2.5-Inch Solid-State Drive
Review by RIP-Felix "When nothing is left in your bag o... : Very good drive, not the best this time.

I upgaded from an X25-M 80Gb G2. That was the best drive available when it came out. I went with intel again because I like the support and reputation of intel. I also like the ease of installation.

It's not the fastest drive out there. I think that honor goes to the OCZ Vertex 3 family. If you want the best that is the way to go and it is the reason I gave the 510 a 4 star rating. Intel has the resources and experiance to max out the SATA 3 connection. They should have released this drive when they achieved it. Look for the next generation to kill it.

The SSD toolbox optimizes windows for an SSD and can run the TRIM command manually when set to IDE mode. That is great for windows XP. In AHCI mode windows 7 sends the TRIM command automatically, but the toolbox will says it can't run on RAID arays if you try to run the disc optimation, even if it actually is in AHCI and recieving TRIM from the OS. Just ignore that message (If you are in AHCI mode you don't need to run it anyway). In RAID arrays there is no way for the drive to recieve TRIM. There is one thing you will have to do yourself. Turn off indexing services. Go to my computer right click on the drive and choose properties. Then uncheck the box that says "allow files on this drive to have its content indexed in addition to file properties.

Here are the useful numbers:
X25-M
- 247Mb/s read, 87Mb/s write maximum throughput, 10,000 IOPS in the 4K file size, 0.125ms access time, and Windows Experance Index gives it a 7.2.

510 Elm Creast
- 465Mb/s Read, 218Mb/s write maximum throughput, 21,000 IOPS in the 4K file size, 0.146ms access time, and Windows Experance Index gives it a 7.8.

These were the very best numbers from all my drive benchmarks (Crystal disc mark 3, HD tune pro, AS SSD, and ATTO Disc). They represent the best you can expect from these drives. I have seen better from both the OCZ vertex 3 and crutial C300 drives.