Intel 330 240gb or Crucial M500 240gb

Mark77 · April 15, 2016

Have one of each, Intel 330 240gb SSD, and a Crucial M500 240gb. Can't decide which to use in my new laptop for its SSD. Both have similar amounts of use, and the lucky SSD will be secure-erased before I install a fresh copy of Windows 10.

Benchmarks seem to be divided on which is faster. Or more energy efficient.

Which one should I use? The laptop takes 9.5mm HDDs/SSDs, so the form factor isn't an issue.

edit: sorry mods, didn't see this was in the 'general' forum. meant it to be in the 'storage' forum.

Bigheart · April 15, 2016

2 hours ago, Mark77 said:

Have one of each, Intel 330 240gb SSD, and a Crucial M500 240gb. Can't decide which to use in my new laptop for its SSD. Both have similar amounts of use, and the lucky SSD will be secure-erased before I install a fresh copy of Windows 10.

Benchmarks seem to be divided on which is faster. Or more energy efficient.

Which one should I use? The laptop takes 9.5mm HDDs/SSDs, so the form factor isn't an issue.

edit: sorry mods, didn't see this was in the 'general' forum. meant it to be in the 'storage' forum.

you are right. the performance difference is negligible. this may seem like stupid advice, but i would honestly throw which ever one you dont like the look of more into your laptop and use the other in a pc.

Mark77 · April 15, 2016

6 minutes ago, Bigheart said:

you are right. the performance difference is negligible. this may seem like stupid advice, but i would honestly throw which ever one you dont like the look of more into your laptop and use the other in a pc.

Yeah about the only reason to use the 330 over the m500 I can think of is that the newest laptops only support 7mm, not 9.5mm devices. Oh, and to keep the laptop 100% Intel. So if I need a 7mm device in the future, I'll have the m500 ready to go.

Ummm, actually I just thought of another reason to use the m500 -- it has AES-256 encryption built-in, while such is disabled in the 330. I've never done encryption/bitlocker/etc. on a laptop though.

Bigheart · April 15, 2016

1 hour ago, Mark77 said:

Yeah about the only reason to use the 330 over the m500 I can think of is that the newest laptops only support 7mm, not 9.5mm devices. Oh, and to keep the laptop 100% Intel.

Ummm, actually I just thought of another reason to use the m500 -- it has AES-256 encryption built-in, while such is disabled in the 330. I've never done encryption/bitlocker/etc. on a laptop though.

i didnt even think about keeping the laptop 100% intel. lol but thats probably cause my rig has so many brands in it.

Mark77 · April 15, 2016

1 hour ago, Bigheart said:

i didnt even think about keeping the laptop 100% intel. lol but thats probably cause my rig has so many brands in it.

Yeah I suppose it doesn't matter. There's some vPro functionality which is enhanced by keeping the WiFi card Intel (normally I like to replace Intels with Atheros), but I haven't read of anything SSD-specific that might matter.