The 120GB M500 is successor to the phenomenally successful Crucial M4. The M500 was poised to win loyal M4 customers but as it turns out the new M500 is worse for typical consumer use than the now nearly three years old M4. There are some cosmetic performance improvements over the M4 but they are purely synthetic. For example, deep queue speeds are significantly improved and the newer M500 handles mixed IO far better. Consumers require decent sequential read/write speeds which average 435/185 MB/s on the M4 vs 395/134 MB/s on the M500! Other manufacturers have come leaps and bounds over the last three years which has raised the performance bar is several notches. In today's market the new M500 simply cannot compete on performance, it doesn't even come close to the likes of the Samsung Evo or OCZ Vector 150. The M500, however, is one of the cheapest mainstream SSDs available at this time but it's easy to justify spending just a little more for a lot more performance. [Feb '14SSDrivePro]
The Intel 520 Series was Intel's first SSD to feature a Sandforce 2281 controller. This controller has powered countless SSDs over the last three years but is now dated and is known to be limited in the area of incompressible write speed. The 120GB Intel 520 scored peak and average sequential read/write speeds of 514/157 and 421/133. These read speeds are good but the peak write of 157 MB/s lags the group leaders average of 313 MB/s by nearly 100%. This relative inability to write lowers the 520's overall effective speed to 403 MB/s or 15% lower than the 459 MB/s achieved by the group leaders. At two years of age the Intel 520 can no longer compete with newer drives, there is far better value available amongst the group leaders. [Feb '14SSDrivePro]
Welcome to our 2.5" and M.2 SSD comparison. We calculate effective speed for both SATA and NVMe drives based on real world performance then adjust by current prices per GB to yield a value for money rating. Our calculated values are checked against thousands of individual user ratings. The customizable table below combines these factors to bring you the definitive list of top SSDs. [SSDrivePro]
Welcome to our PC speed test tool. UserBenchmark will test your PC and compare the results to other users with the same components. You can quickly size up your PC, identify hardware problems and explore the best value for money upgrades.