Intel 540S 1TB

After a drive with more capacity?

Based on SATA3 and conforming to the M.2 form factor, the Intel 540S steps into the fore pushing quantity over quality when it comes to capacity (memory density) versus performance. From the perspective of NVMe drives, the statement holds true. From the perspective of the established SATA3 SSD performance norms, the read performance is right up there with the best of them, while comparatively taking a hit on the writes. But a write performance of 480MB/s for a SATA3 drive is still good and most end-users won’t notice the difference between 480–500MB/s and 500–535MB/s. This leaves drive capacity, and in this respect, the drive delivers with a tasteful cost of ~$0.57 per gigabyte of unformatted storage. By comparison, the 960 Pro is $0.88/GB. If speed isn’t your focus and drive capacity matters, all while requiring or having a strong preference for M.2 form factor, then in that usage scenario, the Intel 540S 1TB makes absolute sense.