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Intel SSDSC1NB240G401 DC S3500 240GB 1.8
Intel

Intel SSDSC1NB240G401 DC S3500 240GB 1.8" Internal SSD

★★★★★4.4 (3 reviews)

Enterprise-grade read consistency at 75,000 IOPS in a compact 1.8-inch footprint that blade server and dense storage deployments demand.

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Overview

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.

Key Features

Perfect for Reducing Load Times in VR

Sequential Read: 500 MB/s; Sequential Write: 260 MB/s

Random Read: 75000 IOPS; Random Write: 7500 IOPS

Storage Capacity: 240GB

Interface: SATA 3.0 6Gb/S

Specifications

Capacity
240 GB
Form Factor
1.8-inch Internal
Interface
SATA 3.0 6 Gb/s
Sequential Read
500 MB/s
Sequential Write
260 MB/s
Random Read IOPS
75,000
Random Write IOPS
7,500
Read Latency (Typical)
50 µs
Read Latency (99.9% Max)
500 µs
Application
Data Center
Brand
Intel
Model
SSDSC1NB240G401

Pros & Cons

👍 Pros

  • Sequential read throughput hits 500 MB/s, saturating the SATA 6 Gb/s interface and delivering maximum possible bandwidth for the bus.
  • 75,000 random read IOPS with 50 µs typical latency makes it suitable for high-concurrency datacenter read workloads where queue depth compounds quickly.
  • Read latency is bounded at 500 µs max for 99.9% of operations, providing the Quality of Service (QoS) consistency that SLAs require — not just peak-condition specs.
  • 1.8-inch form factor enables deployment in dense blade enclosures and high-density storage chassis where 2.5-inch drives physically cannot fit.
  • Low active power consumption reduces thermal load in rack environments where heat per drive directly impacts enclosure density.

👎 Cons

  • 7,500 random write IOPS is modest by enterprise SSD standards — write-intensive workloads like database transaction logs or high-frequency logging will hit a measurable ceiling.
  • Sequential write throughput at 260 MB/s is roughly half the read speed, creating an asymmetry that limits utility in write-balanced mixed I/O profiles.
  • The 1.8-inch form factor requires a mechanical adapter for any standard 2.5-inch or 3.5-inch bay, adding cost and complexity to non-native installations.
  • 240 GB capacity is limited for modern datacenter tiering strategies that typically demand 1.6 TB or greater per slot to justify the cost of a dedicated SSD.
  • SATA interface means this drive cannot benefit from the lower-latency command queuing of NVMe — a hard architectural ceiling that newer datacenter workloads increasingly expose.

Frequently Asked Questions

The 1.8-inch form factor is a datacenter-specific size class used in blade servers, high-density storage enclosures, and Ultrabook-era enterprise notebooks. It is physically smaller than a standard 2.5-inch drive, so it only fits specific enterprise chassis that accommodate this form factor — verify your system's bay compatibility before purchasing.
75,000 random read IOPS means the DC S3500 can service a large number of small, random I/O requests simultaneously — the load profile characteristic of database lookups, virtual machine boot storms, and analytics queries. At 50 µs typical read latency, responses arrive faster than most application-tier software can issue the next request.
This is a deliberate engineering trade-off. The DC S3500 is optimized for read-heavy datacenter workloads — video streaming, analytics, and VDI read caching — where read consistency matters more than write throughput. The asymmetric IOPS profile reflects Intel's MLC NAND tuning for endurance and read latency, not raw write speed.
SATA 3.0 (6 Gb/s). The drive's 500 MB/s sequential read speed is at the practical ceiling of the SATA interface, meaning the interface itself, not the NAND, is the bottleneck. NVMe was not yet standard in this product generation; ensure your target system has SATA connectivity, not PCIe/NVMe only.
Technically it will function in any SATA-capable system, but the 1.8-inch form factor requires an adapter bracket to fit a standard 2.5-inch or 3.5-inch bay. The performance profile and enterprise endurance ratings are overkill for most consumer use, and the cost-per-GB is higher than consumer alternatives of equivalent capacity.

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