SSDs
Western Digital is announcing a host of products under the SanDisk and SanDisk Professional brands today at its What's Next Western Digital Event. The company also provided a second look at products introduced during the recently concluded NAB show - the G-DRIVE PRO STUDIO SSD with a 7.68TB enterprise-class desktop SSD inside, and the addition of 20TB Ultrastar drives to the G-RAID SHUTTLE 8 (driving up the top capacity to 160TB). The new products being announced today have been designed to address issues faced by high-volume content creators. The most exciting of the lot is the SanDisk Professional PRO-BLADE modular SSD ecosystem. Western Digital has created a compact enclosure for its PCIe 3.0 x4 NVMe SSDs (with a custom, but not proprietary connector). Two options...
Micron's ClearNAND: 25nm + ECC, Combats Increasing Error Rates
NAND endurance is on its way down with each subsequent process generation. At the same time unrecoverable bit error rates are on their way up. Companies like SandForce have...
24 by Anand Lal Shimpi on 12/2/2010ADATA N004 - SATA & USB 3.0 SSD Reviewed
OCZ and Kingston have already shown us what solid state technology can do for external drive transfer speeds when given the headroom provided by USB 3.0 technology. Now, ADATA...
18 by Rajinder Gill on 11/29/2010Quick Look: Kingston HyperX MAX 3.0, A USB 3.0 V+100 SSD
Although OCZ was first on the market with a USB 3.0 enabled SSD with its Enyo drive, competitors are knocking down the doors and bridging the gap. We saw...
31 by Anand Lal Shimpi on 11/24/2010OCZ Vertex Plus Preview: Introducing the Indilinx Martini
Last year was dominated by two SSD controller manufacturers: Intel and Indilinx. Intel delivered the performance while Indilinx offered a value alternative. Once SandForce hit early this year however...
61 by Anand Lal Shimpi on 11/16/2010Kingston SSDNow V+100 Review
I'm not sure what it is about SSD manufacturers and overly complicated product stacks. Kingston has no less than six different SSD brands in its lineup. The E Series...
96 by Anand Lal Shimpi on 11/11/2010A Quick Look at OCZ's RevoDrive x2: IBIS Performance without HSDL
Over the summer we previewed OCZ's first affordable PCIe SSD: the RevoDrive. Made of a pair of SandForce SF-1200 controllers behind a PCI-X RAID controller and a PCI-X to...
46 by Anand Lal Shimpi on 11/4/2010SandForce Announces Next-Gen SSDs, SF-2000 Capable of 500MB/s and 60K IOPS
For months SandForce has been telling me that the market is really going to get exciting once its next-generation controller is ready. I didn’t really believe it, simply because...
85 by Anand Lal Shimpi on 10/7/2010Intel's 3rd Generation X25-M SSD Specs Revealed
What's this? The long awaited specs for Intel's third generation SSD? Indeed. Internally it’s called the Postville Refresh (the X25-M G2 carried the Postville codename), but externally it carries the...
97 by Anand Lal Shimpi on 10/5/2010OCZ's Fastest SSD, The IBIS and HSDL Interface Reviewed
Earlier this year OCZ announced its intention to bring a new high speed SSD interface to the market. Frustrated with the slow progress of SATA interface speeds, OCZ wanted...
74 by Anand Lal Shimpi on 9/29/2010Kingston DataTraveler Ultimate 3.0 & OCZ Enyo, Quick Look at Two USB 3.0 SSDs
Since I reviewed my first SSD, three things have happened. 1) Controllers have improved significantly. My personal favorite, SandForce’s SF-1200, can outperform the original X25-M by more than 3x...
20 by Anand Lal Shimpi on 9/14/2010Toshiba Portege R700: A Truly Ultraportable 13.3"
To say that I was very impressed by the Toshiba R700 on paper would be an understatement. Even with very little actual hands-on time with the notebook, I put...
43 by Vivek Gowri on 9/7/2010Micron Announces RealSSD P300, SLC SSD for Enterprise
Buying an SSD for your notebook or desktop is nice. You get more consistent performance. Applications launch extremely fast. And if you choose the right SSD, you really curb...
49 by Anand Lal Shimpi on 8/12/2010The SSD Diaries: Crucial's RealSSD C300
The promise was high. Crucial was to not only offer better than X25-M performance but also be the first to deliver a 6Gbps SSD. Competing controller makers wouldn't hit...
51 by Anand Lal Shimpi on 7/13/2010Dell Adamo 13: CULV Goes Upscale
When it debuted at CES 2009, the 0.65” Dell Adamo 13 gave the notebook world a Windows equivalent to the MacBook Air. With the ultrathin body, the brushed aluminum...
67 by Vivek Gowri on 7/6/2010OCZ's RevoDrive Preview: An Affordable PCIe SSD
Take two SandForce SF-1200 controllers and put them on a card with a boatload of NAND and a RAID controller. Add some special sauce to keep the price low...
62 by Anand Lal Shimpi on 6/25/2010Intel's X25-M and X25-V Now Available in Best Buy Stores
Consider this one big step for SSD-kind: Intel just sent along a note letting us know that its X25-M and X25-V SSDs are now available at Best Buy. The...
25 by Anand Lal Shimpi on 6/22/20102010 Value SSD (~$100) Roundup: Kingston and OCZ take on Intel
Two years ago the best SSD you could buy was made by Intel and it cost $7.44 per GB of MLC NAND. Today Intel is actually the value leader...
52 by Anand Lal Shimpi on 6/3/2010ASUS U30Jc Revisited: Adding an SSD
Last week we looked at the ASUS U30Jc and found a lot to like… so much that we awarded it a Bronze Editors' Choice. The stock configuration comes with...
35 by Jarred Walton on 6/1/2010OCZ Announces SandForce Based PCIe RevoDrive SSD
PCIe based SSDs have been reserved for enterprise use ever since their introduction. Generally limited by pricing, even OCZ's own forays into the PCIe SSD market have been targeted...
35 by Anand Lal Shimpi on 5/31/2010Seagate's Momentus XT Reviewed, Finally a Good Hybrid HDD
The promise of Hybrid HDDs has come and gone with no champion. Today Seagate is announcing its Momentus XT, a 2.5" 7200 RPM notebook drive (9mm form factor) with...
120 by Anand Lal Shimpi on 5/24/2010