What’s ‘Intel’ about Intel’s SSD Pro 2500?

There isn’t much “Intel Inside” Intel’s new line-up of Enterprise-geared SSDs.

VR-Zone’s sister site, Chinese VR-Zone , recently ran a review of Intel’s new SSD for Enterprise customers — the SSD Pro 2500. One particular element of interest from the review was the distinct lack of Intel hardware within the drive itself.

While the SSD Pro 2500 uses the same SandForce controller as the earlier 530 series — though Intel claims it as its own with the Intel BF29A41BB0 model number, it is an LSI SandForce controller inside — one notable change is the substitution of Intel NAND flash memory with cheaper NAND from SK Hynix.



This substitution of memory results in some disappointing performance from the SSD with read performance coming in at 540 MB/s and write performance at approximately 480 MB/s.

The disappointing performance can be expected from the substitution of the NAND from Intel’s own to SK Hynix’s. It was an unfortunate move and cheapens the device as a whole. If you look at all the parts used in making the drive, there isn’t really anything “Intel” about it all together aside from the logo on the front. The two most important parts of the device — the controller and the NAND itself — are made by different companies.

Unfortunately for Intel this means that this SSD will be overshadowed on the market by models with a better price-performance ratio such as Samsung’s 850 Pro, which uses V-NAND and comes it at a better price at $200.

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