Intel 320 Series 600 GB SATA 2.5-Inch Solid-State Drive Brown Box

by Intel

• Intel 320 Series, 600GB SSD
• Generation 3
• MLC, 2.5" form factor

Product Details

• Product Dimensions: 9.2 x 6.5 x 5.4 inches ; 4.8 ounces
• Shipping Weight: 4.8 ounces (View shipping rates and policies)
• Shipping: Currently, item can be shipped only within the U.S.
• ASIN: B004U9YB02
• Item model number: SSDSA2CW600G310
• Average Customer Review: 4.2 out of 5 stars  See all reviews (35 customer reviews)
• Date first available at Amazon.com: April 4, 2011

Product Description

Capacity: 600 GB

Intel 320 Series 600GB SSD OEM box; Gen3, MLC, 2.5 form factor

Most Helpful Customer Reviews

16 of 17 people found the following review helpful

5.0 out of 5 stars Love it April 26, 2011

By Bob Blum

Size Name:120 GB

I just installed this drive into my 3 year old desktop, running WinXP, and
it goes like a bat out of hell. I love it.

I bought the retail kit, which also includes a mounting bracket, data and power cables,
and an instruction cd. However, the drive itself is the same in the OEM kit,
so if you need to save money, then this is a reasonable way to go.
You're not going to be using the bracket or cables, if you install it into a laptop.
And, even if you put it into a desktop, you may not need all these extras.)

The retail kit includes a 3 year warranty on the drive.
It's not clear whether Intel also offers this with the OEM version.
(If someone finds out, they should post it.)

The Intel 320 series drive itself is great. Please see my detailed review
(Freakin' Awesome: Six Stars) and experiences with the drive under the
Amazon ad for the retail kits from Intel.

11 of 11 people found the following review helpful

5.0 out of 5 stars Intel SSD all the way, baby December 7, 2011

By Kevin Sipma

Size Name:80 GB|Amazon Verified Purchase

I am an IT consultant and have purchased and used quite a few Intel SSDs, not just the 320 Series extensively, but the prior generations like the fantastically reliable X-25M series. I just love these SSDs. They transform ANY computer into a "new" one by decreasing the boot times of an OS and load times of small and major apps so dramatically. Throw one of these in a 5 year old laptop and you've got a machine that will outperform the newest off-the-shelf laptops with spindle-based hard disk drives. I particularly choose Intel 320 series for:

* Reliability, which is legendary. I've used the cheaper OCZ products before, but once one of them literally bricked on me just a couple days after setting up a new PC, I don't even bother to price-compare other brands against Intel SSDs. I have been using Intel SSDs for about 2 years now and have never ever had a single issue with any one of them. I would say I have purchased at least 100 Intel SSDs.

* Price. There is a major hard drive shortage going on right now which has raised the prices of hard drives considerably. Granted, while the GB to GB, apples to apples comparison is still not in SSD favor, you just cannot beat the performance benefits of an SSD vs. any HDD. I only use hard drives for storage. OS and Apps go on an Intel SSD, period.

* Software. The Intel SSD Toolbox is absolutely awesome. It will tell you if there is a firmware update available, easily allow you to upgrade the SSD firmware, and will actually show an estimated life remaining. All flash memory have a finite number of write cycles which eventually WILL deplete, so it's nice to FINALLY have the technology where we can replace something up to, and right before, it fails.... I don't believe other SSD brands even offer this kind of a software utility of this caliber.

For those of you who are reading reviews that claim their Intel SSDs failed after so-and-so number of days, weeks, months, whatever, please take note that the reviewer themselves probably most likely did not take the necessary precautions in preventing *static electricity* from damaging these sensitive flash devices! Additionally, even though they do not generate much heat at all, if you put them in a hot environment, it will shorten the lifespan of these sensitive drives dramatically. Exercise proper care!

For those of you who are trying to compare Intel SSDs with any other brand out there, stop looking and just buy an Intel and be done with it. It's worth every single penny and it will enhance your computing life so much, while giving you the reliability you deserve. Read more ›

13 of 14 people found the following review helpful

5.0 out of 5 stars Great SSD June 26, 2011

By J. DALE

Size Name:80 GB|Amazon Verified Purchase

I bought this drive to replace a Kingston SSDNow V+100 96GB SSD. The drive was being used as my Windows 7 boot drive, but I decided to use it for a Mac instead, and buy this Intel for my Win7 drive.

I'll post the Windows Experience Index scores that I've received from my various hard drive configurations for your reference. All scores are from Intel-based, quad-core desktops running Windows 7 64 bit.

Hitachi 2.5" 5400 RPM 160GB (boot and storage): 5.3
WD Caviar Blue 640GB (boot and storage): 5.9
WD Caviar Green 2TB (boot and storage): 5.9
Kingston SSDNow V+100 96GB SSD(boot)/WD Caviar Green 2TB (storage): 7.0
Intel 320 Series 80GB SSD (boot)/WD Caviar Green 2TB (storage): 7.4
Samsung 830 Series 128GB SSD (boot)/Seagate Barracuda Green 2TB (storage): 7.9
(2)Intel 320 Series 80 GB SSDs in RAID 0 (boot)/(2) WD Caviar Green 3TB total (storage): 7.9

The Intel drive thoroughly outperforms the Kingston drive, and is actually a tad cheaper. The PC runs noticeably faster with the Intel drive, and I'm very pleased.

Update: The drive is still running strong (in spite of having been run almost every single second of the last 7 months or so that I've owned it).

I decided to upgrade the PC that this drive was in, and since I wanted a faster SSD, and these have become fairly cheap... I bought a second matching drive to run in RAID 0.

With two Intel 320 series 80gb SSDs running in RAID 0 (striped) on Windows 7 64 bit... I got a 7.9 in the WEI and absolutely stunning performance (matched with an Intel Core i7-2600, an Intel DZ68DB motherboard, and 16GB DDR3 RAM). I also have a 7.9 WEI on my Samsung 830 Series 128GB SSD in my other desktop....

So the RAID 0 setup may not be the best bang-for-the-buck OS drive, but it was certainly a good choice since I already owned one. Read more ›

9 of 10 people found the following review helpful

5.0 out of 5 stars So far, so good! May 23, 2011

By Michael Edelstein

Size Name:600 GB|Amazon Verified Purchase

Really sped up my 2010 MacBook Pro 13". Not clear on energy savings, but I think I am fighting a system software bug on that. Used the computer for 30 minutes yesterday and the time remaining on the charge stayed about the same, which is good. Silent! The best bang for the buck in performance I have seen in a long time. Costly, but impact I hoped for.

6 of 6 people found the following review helpful

4.0 out of 5 stars at last, the solution from Intel is here August 5, 2011

By Carlos M Lopez

Size Name:80 GB|Amazon Verified Purchase

I bought this drive on july 6 2011 and I still have not dared to install on my laptop. As soon as I ordered it I went to the Intel web site to download the last firmware to have everything ready for the installation. Checking the support forum I read many post written since june 1 2011 about a fatal flaw in this series. By the end of july Intel acknowleged the flaw as "Bad Context 13x Error" and today august 5 I still have the drive sealed on its package waiting for the solution from Intel (I don't want to use a SSD with few months of life span). At this point I regret to have sold my Intel X25 drive to buy this one supposedly with an improved reliability.

*** UPDATE AUGUST 22 2011 ****
Intel finally released the new firmware so I updated my drive, let's hope this solution will be permanent. I give two more stars to the product because this drive is as fast as the X25M that I had but I dont know about its reliability, and so far so good.