Intel 520 SSD for sale? When?

[idata]

A quick web search turns up a number of online vendors with the Intel 520 SSD listed as in stock. These listings actually started showing up early this week. But I have not seen a post from anyone who actually has an Intel 520 in hand.

Are the Intel 520 SSDs available to buy yet? If not, what is the ETA? Are the stores lying about having them in stock, or are they truly in stock but embargoed by Intel until some later date?

[idata]

So, now I see that some people who ordered Intel 520 SSDs have actually received them.

Intel, what are you doing? Why do you send out 520 SSDs to sellers before you have even officially announced the product? That seems crazy.

[idata]

Yeah, I'm afraid I have to agree. Normally, I'm the biggest Intel fan, but this whole 520 SSD fiasco has really soured me of buying Intel any time soon. I've been waiting since Nov 4th which is when it was supposed to be released (according to a leak...which was obviously not true at all). But, Intel, you had to know that it was leaked, so why not comment on it. Just put a press release on your site saying, "No, that was NOT true, it will not be released Nov. 4th". But no, you remained silent and let the speculation grow. And here we are in late January of 2012 and STILL no word from you??!!!! Well, I went out and bought a Crucial m4 and I'm happy so I'm sticking with them. My guess is the reason Intel isn't commenting on this new drive is b/c it's got tons of problems...so be forewarned all.... besides at the rate they're going I doubt it will be released ever. Honestly Intel.....what a mess. I can't believe I waited for this thing. And it's not even a good drive. There are tons better out there. Crucial, Kingston, etc...

[idata]

Not to mention that it's based on a SF controller that has been deployed in SSD's that have been available on the market for over 1 year. I'm really disappointed that this is not an Intel controller. What the beep. Have the SSD engineers been on a sabbatical for the last three years?

[idata]

I don't know about "over one year". I think the Sandforce SF2281-based SSDs started selling in March 2011.

So if Intel releases the 520 in February 2012, what they will have is basically just a (hopefully) debugged SF2281 SSD coming to market about 11 months after the main competition.

And it appears Intel did not even include power-loss-protection capacitors in the 520 as they did in the 320. So the 520 is really just exactly like all the other SF2281 SSDs on the market, with the possible exception that Intel might (MIGHT) have done more debugging than the others. I'll believe the debugging when we see no reports of BSODs after 3 months on the market (Intel certainly did not do a great job of debugging the 320). And since Intel is using IMFT flash, the 520 will be slower than similar SSDs with the SF2281 that use toggle flash, or Marvell-based SSDs that use toggle flash (like the Plextor M2P or Corsair Performance Pro)