Intel 540s SSD Review (480GB) – SMI Controller With SK Hynix Memory

REAL WORLD FILE TRANSFER

Finally, we wanted to see how performance was in a real world use when transferring large files to the SSDs. For this test we are going to simply stress write performance by transferring over a 30GB folder of movies off of one SSD to this one and time how long it takes. Once complete we can calculate the average speed.

Just as we have seen in the past with many of these TLC SSDs, the above results are not very impressive. Write speeds averaged around 130MB/s during the 30GB transfer. This result places it just under the standard HDD on the chart, but still head of the Crucial BX200s. Let’s see how well it performs in our power testing.

POWER CONSUMPTION

For our power consumption testing, we have the drive connected to the system as a secondary drive. To record the wattage, we are now utilizing a Quarch Technology Programmable Power Module. It allows us to accurately measure power consumption over time and is flexible enough to allow us to test any SSD that comes our way.

Our power analysis may change as time goes on, but for now we are looking at just a few metrics with the main goal of measuring our results against the manufacturer’s ratings. One, idle power consumption. Because most consumer systems are at idle for about 80% of the time, idle power consumption is an important measure to look at when understanding the efficiency of a drive. Next we look at startup consumption. This tells you how much power the device needs during startup and while it is usually more important when looking at HDDs and enterprise class storage, it is still something worth quantifying. After that we did averaged out the active power consumption from the 30GB file transfer. Finally, we went through our power logs during testing and listed the maximum power draw.

Power test results of the Intel 540s are average with similar drives in this capacity and performance bracket. The max power consumption is well regulated,maxing out at 4.3W. The File Transfer consumption was also good with a result of 3.2W.

Finally, we wanted to post up a graph of the difference in idle power consumption between many of the current SSD options in the market. Again, idle accounts for the majority power draw of a drive and considering the use a drive in laptop, idle power consumption can greatly affect battery life, therefore we feel we should compare it in its own graph.

In the chart above we cn see that SSDs are magnitudes more efficient than standard HDDs. The Intel 540s shows very well controlled idle power consumption consuming only 51 milliwatts, which is spot on with the PNY CS1211 120GB model. Not too bad for a 480GB drive, even though the lower performing Crucial BX200s just beat it in this comparison.