SandForce is back in town and it's here to stay. Intel's 520 Series is a full replacement for the 510 Series, but utilize the SF-2281 controller and custom Intel firmware to deliver one of the best SSDs we seen to date.

Is the Intel 520 Series the SandForce SSD you've been waiting for? Maybe. Intel's latest is a little bit faster than comparable drives based on the same controller and flash memory.

The Intel 520 Series 240GB drive has 223GB available to the user after a roughly 7% spare area is set aside, after Windows takes its cut and you do the GiB to GB shuffle.

Intel has just announced its Intel SSD 520 Series based on a 25nm manufacturing process, and this new series targets the high-end enthusiast market. As it stands, this is the absolute best that Intel has to offer in the non-Enterprise space.

Some companies are content to be first to market with an SSD and then spend months and months squashing bugs which had no business being in firmware released to the general public. Intel on the other hand tends to chart a safer course and while they may not be able to take advantage of early adopter...