Are Intel's solid state drives broken?

A recent report by website PC Perspective suggests that due to a combination of the way the X25-M handles write commands and the wear-leveling algorithms Intel has implemented, both read and write speeds decline markedly with heavy use.

Intel's X25-M solid state disk drive was one of the performance revelations of 2008. But evidence is now emerging that the drives suffer from near catastrophic performance degradation over time.In hindsight, the X25-M's apparent woes are not enormously surprising. It's still early days for SSD technology and pretty much every drive currently available suffers from a few foibles.

In the long run, we've little doubt Intel will address and solve the problem. But for now – and given the hefty price Intel charges for the X25-M - we can only recommend buyers steer clear. Exactly what the implications are for existing owners is another matter altogether.