Intel X-25M 80GB SSD Review

Conclusion

We certainly had high expectations for this drive as we were hoping to use it and its numbers as our Gold Standard for future reviews and boy did the Intel X-25M ever deliver. It simply crushes the competition in many of the tests to the point where it almost became boring to test the darn thing as we knew what the outcome was going to be.

This drive really only has three weaknesses; and one of those -its mediocre write speeds- is not a deal-breaking weakness at all. Honestly, this drive was a joy to use as an OS drive and we would certainly consider using it as a test bed OS drive, which is one of the biggest compliments we can bestow on any drive. As for the second weakness, that would have to be its capacity but once again, this is not going to be a big deal for the majority of you. Sure, we all have become jaded with monster super-sized drives, but 80GB is big enough for even the most bloated of OS’es. Heck, it wasn’t that many years ago (OK it may be more than just few…but still…) that 80GB was considered large enough, or even HUGE. We have eked by with only 32GB SSDs in netbooks and if 32 were enough for a portable computer then 80GB is more than enough for all but a few users out there. For you guys ‘n gals how need the best and 80GB still isn't enough for you…splurge and get the 160GB version.

Honestly, the only real weakness this unit has in today's market is its high price tag. Any way you slice it, the X-25M is not cheap. This is not unexpected as judging from the performance numbers this thing posts, the R&D that went into it must have cost a small fortune. As such, we all have to accept that any new technology is going to cost early adopters an arm and a leg. If you absolutely, positively have to have the fastest drive out there, the X-25M is definitely the one to get for the time being. In all honesty, if all that is stopping you from pulling the trigger on this bad boy is price, we would seriously consider you go back and check the benchmarks again.

However, you also have to remember that the synthetic tests we ran don't even tell half the story. If you check out the real world performance, it becomes obvious that a even a blazingly fast SSD will have a minimal impact on overall system performance. Sure, you may find opening applications to be a bit more snappy but in the end, you have to ask yourself: does the end justify the means? We believe so.

For this and all the little things which we have gone over in this review we here at HWC are Damn Proud to present the X-25M with our most prestigious award the Dam Good Hardware award. Congratulations, Intel for knocking your first try at mainstream SSDs not only out of the park but into the darn parking lot! We expect this drive to be our high water mark for our SSD reviews for foreseeable future.


Pros:

- Good write performance
- Amazing read performance
- Light Weight
- Silent
- Vibration Resistant
- 3 year Warranty

Cons:

- Price
- 80GB is a little on the small side