730 Series 240GB

The 240GB Intel 730 is just two months old and the newest SSDs in our group test. The 730 uses Intel's own enterprise controller (rather than a Sandforce) and it's marketed by Intel as an enthusiast class drive with data centre reliability. Backed by a 50GB per day, five year warranty the 730 has the most generous warranty I have seen on a consumer SSD. Unfortunately when it comes to performance the 730 is seriously let down by its relatively feeble peak sequential write speed of just 286 MB/s. The 730 scored an effective speed of just 439 MB/s which is 17% below the average of the ten group leaders. I seriously doubt that Intel will sell many of these drives at their current price point which is 25% higher than the average of the leading 240GB SSDs. ^{[Mar '14 SSDrivePro]}