Intel SSDSC1NB240G401 DC S3500 240GB 1.8" Internal SSD

The Intel DC S3500 240GB delivers 500 MB/s sequential reads and 75,000 random read IOPS — both at the practical limit of the SATA 3.0 6 Gb/s interface — paired with a 50 µs typical read latency that remains bounded at 500 µs for 99.9% of operations. That latency guarantee is the engineering story here: most SSDs publish peak-condition IOPS, but the DC S3500's QoS specification means the drive maintains predictable response times under real workload pressure, not just synthetic benchmarks. The 1.8-inch form factor targets a specific class of enterprise hardware — blade servers and high-density enclosures — where physical footprint per drive matters as much as throughput.

This drive was built for read-heavy datacenter tiers: virtual desktop infrastructure (VDI) read caching, video conferencing infrastructure, big data analytics query nodes, and hot-data tiers in tiered storage architectures. It is not designed for write-intensive roles. Organizations deploying it as a read-cache tier in a storage array or as a boot/OS drive in a rack server will see consistent performance across its rated life. For any shop still running infrastructure with 1.8-inch bays — particularly older blade chassis — the DC S3500 is one of the few enterprise SATA SSDs available in this form factor, making it a targeted solution for a specific hardware generation rather than a general-purpose upgrade.