INTEL 120 GB 2.5" Internal Solid State Drive 2.5IN MLC 7MM RESELLER BOX / SSDSC2BW120A4K5 /

INTEL 120 GB 2.5" Internal Solid State Drive 2.5IN MLC 7MM RESELLER BOX / SSDSC2BW120A4K5 /..

Special Price INTEL 120 GB 2.5" Internal Solid State Drive 2.5IN MLC 7MM RESELLER BOX / SSDSC2BW120A4K5 / By Intel

Most helpful customer reviews

125 of 140 people found the following review helpful.
The drive is great, but what's interesting is that Intel is also a price leader.
By Al
UPDATE: Amazon no longer sells this drive at the introductory price. Although the drive has increased in price, it's still an excellent SSD, and it's still extremely competitive on a $ per GB basis.

Intel is now a price leader in the 5-year warranty consumer space. This drive was (at Amazon's introductory price) almost the same price as the Samsung 840 Pro 128GB (before provisioning). Intel was giving 50% more space than the Samsung 840 Pro for nearly the same price. Even with the higher price, it's still a better deal per GB than the Samsung 840 Pro.

I have 5 SSDs on my personal computers. 3 of my 5 SSDs are Intel, my other 2 are Samsung 840 (Pro and non-Pro) drives. I have an Intel 330 120GB and 2 of these new 530 180GB drives. Synthetic benchmarks can show the advantages and disadvantages of all my different drives, but for all practical purposes, I can't tell the difference in my daily use. My backups show a small difference, but since my backups are automated weekly, it doesn't make any difference.

Both Intel and Samsung have excellent software packages.

Reliability and price rule my choices. Since flash drives wear out through the process of programming and erasing cells, and use wear-leveling to make the drives last longer, I did a search for these statistics.

A simple search of the reviews of my various drives shows my SSD's different program/erase (p/e) cycles. This is what I found:

Samsung 840 ~ 1,000 p/e cycles;
Samsung 840 Pro ~ 3,000 - 5,000 p/e cycles;

Intel 330 ~ 3,000 p/e cycles;
Intel 335 ~ 3,000 p/e cycles (I don't own this drive, but included it for comparative purposes);
Intel 520/525 ~ 5,000 p/e cycles (I don't own either of these drives, but included them for comparative purposes);
Intel 530 ~ I couldn't find any numbers on p/e cycles, but I would expect the drive to have between 3,000 - 5,000 p/e cycles.

I wouldn't be surprised if Intel is having difficulty keeping up their 520/525's 5,000 p/e cycles benchmark on the 530; Intel's 520/525 uses 25nm NAND and the 530 uses 20nm NAND.

I haven't seen any reports of Samsung moving to sub-20nm NAND, but Micron (Intel's partner in flash memory) has reported that IMFT (Intel Micron Flash Technologies) is already moving to 16nm production as I write this. I doubt if Samsung can keep up with Intel's semiconductor process technology; the Samsung 840 (non-Pro) uses TLC (triple level cell) NAND, and is already at 1,000 p/e cycles.

Although my Samsung 840 and 840 Pro have class leading controllers in the consumer space, the 840's (non-Pro) durability remains hugely questionable given that it's rated at 1,000 p/e cycles; I use this drive on my 85 year old father's computer -- he only uses his computer to browse the internet, and Win8 only uses about 35GB of space.

Samsung has a notorious customer service record. Even now, recent reviews on the Samsung 840 Pro show that there are plenty of conflicting reports on whether the 840 Pro has a 3-year or a 5-year warranty -- Caveat Emptor (let the buyer beware), especially on the Samsung 840 (non-Pro) drive.

While Samsung may find it difficult to scale it's NAND process technology lower, consumers are benefiting from Intel's lower prices.

51 of 62 people found the following review helpful.
Comes with adapter
By wrightwinger
Item COMES WITH 3.5" ADAPTER AND SATAIII cable (but with 180* angled head).
So no need to order an adapter for a desktop.
(No review of actual ssd yet)

31 of 40 people found the following review helpful.
This SSD is compatible with MacBook Pro 13" (Mid 2012) Non-Retina
By Tan Yao Zong
I noticed that not many people left reviews about this product and its compatibility with MacBook, so here's what i gathered so far based on my usage! =)

Laptop Model: MacBook Pro 13" (Mid 2012) Non-Retina
OS: Mac OSX 10.9 Mavericks AND Bootcamp Windows 7 Ultimate 64bit

About the product:
Item came in a good sturdy box, and was easy to install. But there was no USB to SATA cable, so those of you who prefer installing the OS on the drive before physically mounting it into your MacBook, you may want to consider getting this cable first. For myself, I clean installed the OS 10.9 from a USB thumbdrive after fitting it into the MacBook.

Compatibility with MacBook Pro:
Boot time:6-8s
Shutdown time: 10-12s

I read on another forum that some other MacBook users experienced problems on a warm reboot (ie. the drive doesnt allow them to reboot after its been startup, and can only do a cold reboot), but so far I have not encountered any of such problems, even with both OSX and bootcamp installed.

Since installation (just a day ago), I'm liking every bit of it, especially the significantly faster bootup times, and that applications and processes are much snappier than before (I was previously using the stock Toshiba 500GB mechanical HDD that shipped with the MacBook).

So for those of you who have doubts over its compatibility with MacBook, i'd go as for to say that there certainly isnt any compatibility issues.. However, if optimisation for efficiency and power-saving features etc is your primary focus, I'm not so sure how well this performs just yet.. Certainly, the low price point (as compared to other brands of SSDs) is a heavy consideration that made me purchase this over the others..

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