Intel has not been making SSDs for the mainstream market for as long as OCZ, but it's learned quickly, and as usual quickly worked its way into a position of power in a very short time.

SSDs have made their presence felt across more consumer products, these days, which range from notebooks to the hot new topic in town, Ultrabooks, that primarily use SSDs for storage.

While we only have Intel's MSRP's to go on at the moment, it's clear that they have a long way to drop to compete with the likes of the OCZ Vertex 3 - a drive that nips at its heels performance-wise.

With our test unit for the Intel 520 series 240GB SSD came a full upgrade kit as well. You have a 3.5-inch bay with multiple screws and a molex-to-SATA power cable. Manuals and software mini-disc are also part of the package.

When Intel released its 510 Series solid-state drive (SSD) a year ago, it used a controller not that the giant company had created itself but rather one from Marvell. Intel hasn't gone back to keeping it "all in the family" with its newest SSD, the 520 Series, but it has chosen SandForce instead-and...

Excellent performance; Covered by five-year warranty

More expensive; but not significantly faster; than competing drives

The rumour mill was working overtime throughout 2011 with suggestions that Intel was considering forsaking the

Intel has finally refreshed their enthusiast SSD line-up by launching drives built on second generation SandForce controllers. Is it another SF-2281 clone? Not at all! Intel's products come with exclusive firmware, which puts them one step above all other currently existing solid state drives.

The Intel 520 test model (240 GB version) has proved its worth in multiple tests and time and again, it landed in the top tiers of our database. Intel aims to offset the issues of reliability of SandForce-based SSDs by extensively modifying and testing the firmware used by the SandForce controller.

Review The rumour mill was working overtime throughout 2011 with suggestions that Intel was considering forsaking the Marvell controllers it had used for its previous generation of consumer SSDs, the 510 series.

On paper the new Intel 520 Series appears to be just another Team SandForce release like several of the products we've looked at for the last thirteen months. The SF-2000 Series controllers hit media testing labs in December 2010 and client drives based on the consumer SF-2281 were on display at CES...