RunCore's
always offered fast SSDs, but we're not so sure its new 2.5-inch ProCore IV drives offer the right mix of price, performance, and storage for the target market -- sure, they're fast, with up to 240MBps reads and 185MBps writes, but they're also expensive, starting at $179 for 32GB and quickly ramping up to $599 for 128GB and a whopping $999 for 256GB. That's a lot of scratch for the average laptop customer, and while the speed gains may be obvious, we're not so sure the storage tradeoff seems worth it. That said, RunCore's made it pretty easy to swap one of these puppies in: each drive includes a USB enclosure and cloning software that'll have you up and running at high speed in a jiff. Yeah, we're on the fence -- check out a video demo after the break and tell us if you think it's worth it.
Read - RunCore Pro IV press release
Read - jkkmobile tests
posted May 4th 2009 12:03PM
Wow, you can say the same thing about Apple products... and Porche and every other premium product out there...
You want it you pay nubs!
Thats like some bum walking off the street and wants the new Porche that is on a waiting list, but the MOFO tries to haggle...
Fack You monster cable!
Apple is far from premium, nor is any other computer manufacturer. We are talking about $200-$300 difference in price, nothing 'premium' about that. Open up any of the latest macbook's and you'll see the exact same cheap hynix memory, nvidia motherboard, and core 2 duo that you find in any other oem pc.
It's becoming increasingly difficult to discern sarcasm from stupidity from stupid attempts at sarcasm.
PG
The difference from Mac's and normal PC's is the design. Even the internal design is really great on Macs. Also, if you haven't noticed, Apple tends to get some things earlier (9400M, new Mac Pro processors etc.)
Patrick7 - style over substance, does not make premium; it's called being overcharged so you think you look cool.
JKK gave us the finger!
prices are not good but the bigger they get the cheaper it gets. That is atleast a good thing. Seemed like they were directly proportional for a while.
A Usb 3.0 enclosure ? Otherwise there is no high speed...
Yeah, it seems pricey now... but the technology is exciting. I'm enjoying watching the way that different technologies are now adapting to make up for the performance drop that netbook chips bring. Rather than the race to the bottom that was predicted by some, it seems to have the opposite effect of opening up an entirely different market and increasing things like efficiency (in both the hardware... like this ssd, and software... like Windows7) and noise reduction. I'm looking forward to seeing how this evolves.
Off topic, but the 32GB SSD I got from these folks for my Dell Mini 9 made for a significant performance boost along with the extra capacity.
I'd probably get one of these based on past good relations with the company as well as the numbers.
So this is another drive based off the Indilex controller... and it's so much more expensive than the Vertex because?
Is their firmware that far superior? How come I'm having trouble finding a comparison?
It's good to see improvements in SSD ... but why doesn't anyone do a 3.5 drive to replace
standard HDs .. I would like a 3.5 version for the desktop system so you could have 2
SSD 3.5 set in a mirroring config and 4 or 5 standard drives in raid-5 config for data.
there are 3.5" SSD drives. Imation sells some as do some others.
all they are however, is the same parts from a 2.5" drive in a bigger case.
if you want 3.5", just get one of the many hundred converters that put 2x2.5" drives in a 3.5" drive spot.
OCZ Vertex and IBM X25-M both are faster than this one ;-/
Engadget, don't be so ridiculously short cited. The fastest 32GB ssd on the market is currently the Intel X25-e (at least from what i'm aware of), and it is identically as fast as the RunCore. The X25-e goes for 380 on a good day, i'm not seeing why this $179 RunCore isn't the hottest girl in town.
Because the X25e is SLC and this is MLC.
Because the OCZ Vertex 30gb is a nearly identical drive (same controller, size - OCZ underrates - etc) for less than $130.
999$ for 256gig? or 13 TB?
Just a note for everyone considering an SSD:
1) SSDs have wildly different performance depending on the manufacturer, controller architecture, etc.
2) You cannot rely on manufacturers stated claims of performance
3) Sustained read and write speeds are only a small part of SSD performance, with random reads and writes just as important
Basically, what I am saying is that you should never buy an SSD without seeing it benchmarked and compared to others by a reliable source like Anandtech (which just did a big roundup review) or PCperspective which is an excellent source of reviews.
Regarding this particular drive, you should compare the prices/GB to the OCZ Vertex and OCZ Summit series, which are great values.
If you use a computer for work this drive will change your life as you know it. Price should not even be a factor in the decision. Look at what Jason O'Grady of ZDnet said:
"they’re incredibly fast. As in life changing fast."
"I’ve been testing the new 128GB Pro IV in my MacBook Pro for about two weeks and the results are amazing. In fact, after using the Pro IV SSD in my MacBook Pro I don’t think that I’ll ever be able to go back to a standard hard drive again - it’s that fast. Apps fly open"
http://blogs.zdnet.com/Apple/?p=3811
the links are the wrong way around. The first one links to the review and the second one is the press release
I'm not seeing where the extreme pricing comes from... it's MLC, it uses a controller from a small startup company where the firmware is still in beta status, and you can't be sure about the support over the next few years.
every modern MLC drive givsy you access times of well under 0.1 milliseconds, and that's where the performance and snappy windows experience is coming from. combine that with write speeds above 150MB/s and you're good to go. if you desperately need lightning fast writes, get an expensive SLC drive. from my experience, you're on the safe side with the big manufacturers like intel and samsung as their controllers and firmware are tested thoroughly and get upgraded when needed (as with the intel X-25M series). also you're more or less guaranteed to get a thorough support over the next few years. everything else, from OCZ to this RunCore stuff, is for adventurers. but at least the *good* OCZ drives (vertex/summit) have an attractive price/performance relation. and keep in mind that the rest of the OCZ drives based on the jmicron controller is nothing more than expensive garbage.
....i just tried this with my patriot warp 32gb ssd in a lenovo s10e and it was just as fast....my crystaldiskmark 4k write is definitely lower but it opened pretty darn fast. i opened folders, games (solitaire mine sweeper), word 2007, notepad,cmd,cccleaner, paint, youtube,speedfan,etc. up to 20 apps. log of was equivalently fast too. anyone with another ssd try this yet?
damn, great ssd speed and all, but does he have to rub it in so harshly? no one should be flipped off that much outside of traffic...
lol