Introduction

The company Intel does not really need much of an introduction. It has been a market and technology leader in CPU technology since ages. One of their less well-known area of expertise is the production of flash memory chips, so it comes as no surprise that Intel went into the Solid-Storage business not too long ago.

Their Intel SSD 510 Series is the current consumer SSD flagship. Being based on MLC Intel memory, with support for SATA 6 Gbps it aims to be the fastest consumer SSD that money can buy.

Intel's approach to building their 510 Series SSD is quite interesting. They have chosen to use a fairly generic Marvell flash controller, which we have also seen on Crucial's M4. Intel's secret sauce to a high-performance 510 SSD lies in the drive firmware. Like all other SSD manufacturers they do not tell any implementation details, but their changes yield an almost 10% performance improvement in the 510 Series over other drives using the same hardware platform.