Conclusion

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With the SSD 520 Series, Intel has a 240 Gigabyte SSD in its portfolio that comes with quite a competitive level of performance. The fact that the drive has been equipped with a SandForce SF-2281 controller already suggests that it might be fast. At the end of the day you get 52'000 IOPS when doing 4k reads and 71'000 IOPS when performing 4k writes. Therefore the Intel must have done quite a lot of optimization towards a more equal distribution of random read and random writes compared to other SandForce SF-2281 based drives. 

A closer look at the sequential thoughput rates reveals very good performance once again. Regarding sequential reads we se a maximum value of 546 Megabyte per second. Concerning sequential writes the drive tops out at 521 Megabyte per seconds. These values are also highly competitive. Concerning these numbers one needs to be aware, that SandForce controllers make us of compression algorithms, which means that when you process highly compressed files, those algorithms bring no advantage. In this case sequential performance will drop when you're for example going to copy a full HD video files.  

Last but not least there is the price: the 240 Gigabyte Intel SSD 520 Series costs about CHF 489.- (est EUR 408.-). The fact that you also get a good bundle with this drive, really makes it worth its price.

The Intel SSD 520 Series with 240 Gigabyte receives good four out of five stars.