Intel Enterprise SSD Roundup – X25-E, SSD 320, 710, 910, DC S3500 and S3700 compared

Internals, Testing Methodology and System Setup

Internals:

Time to void several warranties at once:

From left: X25-E, SSD 320, SSD 710, SSD DC S3500, SSD DC S3700, SSD 910
See here for additional disassembly pics of the SSD 910.

The SSD 320 and SSD 710 are virtually identical with the only real differences lying *inside* the chips in the form of enterprise firmware with built-in overprovisioning and high endurance capabilities.

The DC S3500 and S3700 are also nearly identical, with the main differences being the type of flash memory used. The S3700 is short one RAM device as it is a lower capacity unit. RAM is not used for buffering of data, but maintaining the table used to map logical sectors to physical flash memory addresses. Such a map is a requirement of all modern SSDs, as it is how they implement write combination and wear leveling.

Another shot of the front of the two newest DC units.

At the rear we see another 8 surface mount packages mated with additional supporting power electronics.

In this shot we see the solid state capacitors (left) used on the SSD 310 and 710 Series as compared to the electrolytics used on the SSD 910 (above) and DC S3500/3700 Series (right).

Testing Methodology

Our tests are a mix of synthetic and real-world benchmarks. PCMark, IOMeter, HDTach, HDTune, Yapt and our custom File Copy test round out the selection to cover just about all bases. If you have any questions about our tests just drop into the Storage Forum and we'll help you out! 

Test System Setup

We currently employ a pair of testbeds. Our trusty Z68 SandyBridge testbed sits along side a newer ASUS P8Z77-V Pro/Thunderbolt.Results between both boards have been +/- 2% of each other – well within the best data scatter of a typical benchmark.

PC Perspective would like to thank ASUS, Corsair, and Kingston for supplying some of the components of our test rigs.