An independent test by PC Perspective on the long-term performance of Intel's mainstream solid state drives concluded the chipmaker's drives are significantly slower after prolonged use. Intel itself is trying to duplicate the report's results, but so far has been unable to do so. The test results say a used Intel X25-M solid state drive loses performance due to internal fragmentation compared to a new one. The report said the drives' performance drops "to significantly below" official specs.

The reviewers say they have tried to reproduce real-world results for their tests, including dozens of different scenarios such as Windows XP or Vista installs, application and game installs and batch copying. The three tested Intel SSDs dropped in performance despite the different types of workloads applied to them. Each was tested in a different PC powered by three distinct Intel chips and various other differences in system set-up.

Intel argues the tests performed do not reflect real-world use and has not been able to duplicate the results. As well, Intel says the benchmark performance is not representative of what a PC user experiences. The company does agree that the performance of a full drive of any kind degrades, but the level of degradation reported by PC Perspective is higher than Intel expects. [via CNET]