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The best SSDs
By Andrew Cunningham This post was done in partnership with Wirecutter. When readers choose to buy Wirecutter's independently chosen editorial picks, it may earn affiliate commissions that support its work. Read the full article here. Whether you're replacing an existing solid-state drive or upgrading from a traditional hard drive to get better performance, almost every SSD you can buy today is great. But some are still better than others. If you need to buy a SATA SSD right now, we think the 500 GB Crucial MX500 is the best option for most people. The MX500 isn't the fastest SATA SSD you can get, but it comes close, and it has the best combination of price, performance, and capacity of any drive you can buy.
Slickdeals' best in tech October 29th: Digital camera bundles and a 65-inch Panasonic VIERA 3D HDTV
Looking to save some coin on your tech purchases? Of course you are! In this round-up, we'll run down a list of the freshest frugal buys, hand-picked with the help of the folks at Slickdeals. You'll want to act fast, though, as many of these offerings won't stick around long. Suffering from an awful case of the Mondays? Don't fret. We're sure a handful of gadget deals will put a little more pep in your step. Two more Canon bundles top the list this time out while a 65-inch Panasonic VIERA 3D Plasma HDTV gets a sizable discount as well. Jump down past the break to peek at the goods. As always, keep a close watch on those coupon codes and the requisite rebate forms.
TDK breaks the Hard Drive density limit, could go on to develop super-sized storage
While the old-fashioned hard drive isn't as fast or slender as an SSD, it can still lord its greater capacities and cheaper price over its upstart rival. TDK thinks it's extended the mediums lead in that area by tweaking the magnetic heads and recording medium of the hardware -- increasing the areal density of a unit to 1.5 TB per square inch. It means that we could see 1TB platters arriving in 2.5-inch laptop drives and 2TB platters in desktop modules, meaning even your commuting machine can store all of your heftiest data with ease.
Intel 330 Series SSDs official, prices start at $89
Been holding off on stuffing solid state storage into your existing machine because of high prices or reliability issues? Bargain hunters, your SSD may have just arrived in the form of Intel's 330 Series SSDs. We got the low down on them weeks ago, but in case you forgot, Intels new 25nm NAND entry utilizes a SATA 6 Gb/s connection to deliver up to 500 MB/s sequential reads and 450 MB/s writes. Such speeds aren't spectacular compared to other SSDs, but combine them with Chipzilla's reputation for crafting quality drives, low prices -- $89 for 60GB, $149 for 120GB, and $234 for 180GB -- and a three year warranty, and the 330 has some serious curb appeal. Want one? All three sizes available now online or at you local retailer (assuming it's still there, of course).
Super Talent teases whip-fast RAIDDrive UpStream PCIe SSD
Super Talent's developed a PCI Express flash storage system that's far faster than your current SSD yet promises to be cheaper than the company's current PCIe offerings. The RAIDDrive UpStream uses a Sandforce controller to push around 1GBps of data at twice the speed of a SATA unit. Available to buy in 220GB, 460GB and 960GB editions, it sandwiches in four RAID drives to competitor OCZ's two, and is promised to be an "upsetter" by marketing director Peter Carcione. The company's hoping to get the devices into boxes and onto shelves by the end of April, for a price that's yet to be decided. Just remember, powerful SSDs are like having a butler: desirable, yes, but also a little pricey if your surname isn't Abramovitch or Buffett.
ADATA reveals three new SandForce SSDs for the high, mid and low end (updated)
ADATA makes multiple memory solutions, including super fast USB sticks, and now the company has released a trio of new SSDs, with a model for every type of consumer. There's the XPG SX900 built for enthusiasts that uses a SATA III 6Gbps connection and SandForce SF-2281 controller to deliver 550MB/s reads and 530MB/s writes in up to a 512GB drive. The Premier Pro SP900 packs similar specs to deliver 550MB/s reads and 520MB/s writes in up to a 256GB package, but at lower price point than its performance sibling. Rounding things out is the Premier SP800, a budget entry in 32 and 64GB sizes that uses a SATA II 3Gbps interface, plus an SF-1222 SF-2141 controller to deliver 280MB/s and 260MB/s sequential speeds. As usual, ADATA's not telling how much the new SSDs will set you back, but there's a full slate of specs at the source below and PR after the break.
Ask Engadget: best sub-$150 SSD?
We know you've got questions, and if you're brave enough to ask the world for answers, here's the outlet to do so. This week's Ask Engadget inquiry is coming to us from Aaron, who was inspired by our Primed article on SSDs to buy one of his own. If you're looking to send in an inquiry of your own, drop us a line at ask [at] engadget [dawt] com. "I've really been thinking about upgrading to an SSD. Speed is a big plus and I'd prefer a SATA 3.0, but I'm concerned about reliability and keeping my budget to around $150. What SSDs are Engadget readers using and what would you recommend? Thanks!" So come on people, is there a beloved SSD that you'd love everyone to use? Do you prefer Crucial to Super Talent? Can you really upgrade to a decently-sized SSD for under $200? Help a brother out by shouting loudly and proudly (inside voices only, please) in the comments below.
Super Talent intros enthusiast-level TerraNova SSDs
Super Talent has released a new range of "enthusiast" level MLC NAND Flash SSDs that offer the sort of face-melting speed that only comes when someone else is paying. The SATA Rev. 3.0 drives come with a SandForce 2200 processor (with a firmware tweaked for performance) in a 2.5-inch form factor that offers the usual 6Gb/s pipeline in: 64GB (540 Read / 490 Write), 120GB (540 / 510), 240GB (540 / 520) and 480GB (540/480) flavors. The drives begin shipping "today" and will set you back $109 / 60GB, $179 / 120GB, $365 / 240GB and $920 for the 480GB whopper. Head on past the break to see what the company has to say on the matter.
Samsung's mSATA PM830 is eight grams of pure SSD
The newest member of Samsung's 6Gb/s PM830 family of SSDs is designed to sit inside the Ultrabooks of 2012, which means it's had go through some slimming down. The mSATA drive uses 20 nanometer NAND for face-melting speed, but is crammed into a 50.95 x 30 x 3.8mm package, weighing only eight grams. The drive will comfortably read 500MB/s and write 260MB/s on a clear day, six times faster than a comparable HDD. It'll allow Windows to boot in under ten seconds and transfer "five DVD files" (roughly 45GB) in around a minute. The drives also come with 256-bit AES for those moments when your Ultrabook gets stolen, or more likely, floats away in the wind. 64GB, 128GB and 256GB variants will roll out to OEMs shortly but we expect a consumer version to be announced shortly for everyone with some courage and a screwdriver.
OCZ Octane SSD benchmarked, new Indilinx controller holds its ground
Maybe it's just interference from our seasonal goggles, but isn't there something quite cheery about SSD reviews? In the case of OCZ's Octane drive, our good spirits derive from the sturdy performance of its freshly-conceived Indilinx Everest controller, which ought to keep big players like SandForce and Samsung on their toes. HotHardware just reviewed the $369 $879 512GB variant and found that it delivered fast boot-up times, strong read speeds and writes that were just shy of enthusiast-class drives. Follow the source link for the full and possibly festive benchmarks. Update: Sorry about the optimistic price error. Guess we got carried away with all the holiday discounts. As many of y'all spotted, it's the 256GB version that goes for $369. Update: We just added links to reviews from AnandTech and Storage Review, which both arrived at similarly positive conclusions.
Plextor outs M3S SSD: SATA III and an 'ironclad' five-year warranty from $199
Harken to the news of Plextor's latest 2.5-inch SSD, which beats previous offerings with three things you can't complain about: a lower price, a modest spec bump and an extra two annums beyond the usual three-year warranty. The M3S employs SATA III and a Marvell controller to deliver speeds of 525MB/s and 445MB/s for sequential reads and writes, and 70,000 and 65,000 IOPS for random reads and writes. The lowest 128GB capacity will sell for $200 from the end of this month, alongside a 256GB variant for $350 and -- from early next year -- 512GB for $700. The company's proprietary True Speed software is also in attendance, which claims to preserve "like-new" rapidity even as the drive fills up with fragmented data. You'll find further specs in the PR after the break, but alas it has none of the third-person narrative flair we saw last time.
LaCie Little Big Disk Thunderbolt SSD review
Thunderbolt's the newest kid on the connection block, and its greased-lightning transfer rates make for an awfully attractive alternative to USB and FireWire for those who move big chunks of data on the regular. Despite its many advantages, it's still in its infancy, so there are few peripherals supporting the 10Gbps interface. LaCie's Little Big Disk Thunderbolt SSD is among the first to make use of Apple and Intel's new data superhighway, and it pairs a couple of 2.5-inch, 120GB Intel 320 series SSDs in RAID 0 configuration to take full advantage of all that bandwidth. But, such speed comes at a hefty cost: $899.95 when it goes on sale later this month. Is it as quick as they say? Is it worth the money? There's only one way to find out, so let's see how the latest Little Big Disk handles itself, shall we? %Gallery-138735%
Engadget Primed: SSDs and you
Primed goes in-depth on the technobabble you hear on Engadget every day -- we dig deep into each topic's history and how it benefits our lives. You can follow the series here. Looking to suggest a piece of technology for us to break down? Drop us a line at primed *at* engadget *dawt* com. If you're a storage aficionado -- and who here isn't? -- you've probably heard a lot about SSDs, those friendly solid-state disks promising dramatically improved performance over their magnetically inclined brethren. No doubt you've heard about the advantages, thanks to NAND storage that makes them silent, shock resistant, energy efficient and lightning quick. Yet you've also heard the horror stories: drive slowdowns, controller failures and manufacturer recalls. And adding to all those anxiety-producing headlines, there's the price premium. While most magnetic drives average around a nickel or dime per gigabyte, even consumer-grade SSDs still run $1-2 per gigabyte, often for drastically smaller-capacity drives. Three years ago, Intel launched its X25-M and X18-M: the "M" stood for "mainstream," and the pair of drives were designed to reintroduce solid-state storage to a cost-conscious consumer market. (Perhaps more importantly, they were also meant to solidify Intel's standing in the nascent SSD realm, up to that point a chaotic, Wild West-style domain. But we'll get to that.) For most users magnetic drives still remain king, with solid states appealing primarily to a niche of enterprise IT professionals and modding enthusiasts. How did that happen -- and should it be different? After the break we'll look at how and why SSDs haven't (yet) conquered the storage world, and examine whether they're poised to do just that.
Intel's 710 SSDs get announced, bit too rich for the Christmas list (video)
Owning a high-capacity SSD is a bit like having a butler -- it's a lovely option, but so damn expensive. Intel's announcing Lyndonville -- more modestly called the SSD 710, which replaces the less modestly named X25-E Extreme. The enterprise-level SSD's carrying 25-nanometer MLC flash memory and when tested, five of the drives were able to handle the same load as 90 x 15,000 RPM HDDs in Intel's data center. The drives will be available in the fall, and considering it's already September, we can only assume the company is waiting for a few more leaves to turn brown before going to OEMs. Volume pricing for units of 1,000 places the 100GB model at $649, 200GB at $1,289 and the 300GB at a tear-inducing $1,929. You can see Intel's Agustin Gonzalez talk up the 710 in the video after the break.
SATA-IO outs new SATA Express and Embedded SSD standards, acronyms abound
It's a big day for SATA-IO, as the organization has just announced not one, but two new SATA standards. The first of these, the SATA Express specification, gets the latter half of its name from the 'e' in PCIe, as it will allow current SATA standards to piggyback on the PCIe interface, boosting speeds to 8Gbps and 16Gbps, up from the current 6Gbps. SATA Express is expected to make its official debut later this year. SATA µSSD, on the other hand, is currently ready to go, and already implemented in SanDisk's iSSD embedded drive. It ditches the module connector from the old interface, allowing OEMs to stack single-chip drives right on the motherboard. A plethora of SATA-related press releases awaits you after the break -- if you're into that sort of thing.
Moneta Onyx phase-change memory prototype can write some data 7x faster than traditional SSDs
As file sizes for many data types continue to grow, smaller chunks are also becoming more ubiquitous, particularly on social media sites like Twitter and Facebook, and search tools like Google. These high-volume, small-size blocks of data may soon be served up from a specific type of SSD, like the Moneta Onyx prototype developed by a team at the University of California, San Diego. Onyx uses phase-change memory (PCM), which can rewrite single bits of data (1s and 0s) on demand, rather than rewriting data in larger chunks, yielding sustained 327 megabyte per second (MB/s) reads and 91MB/s writes with smaller file types -- two to seven times faster than the most efficient commercial SSDs. PCM specifically benefits granular data, rather than large files that must be transferred completely (like photos and documents), so the tech is more likely to appear on devices serving up short text-based messages. Traditional SSDs can write larger files faster than the Onyx prototype, though the new drive offers speedier read speeds across the board. It'll be at least a couple years before PCM becomes commercially available, but once (and if) it does, you'll be reading about your coworker's breakfast or college buddy's traffic jam milliseconds faster than before.
SanDisk outs faster U100 and i100 SSDs for ultra-portables and tablets, we go hands-on
SanDisk has been pumping out press releases all day thanks to Computex-mania, so we shuffled past its stall to see what all the fuss is about. The biggest news is the U100 range of tiny SSDs for ultraportables, which crank data in and out at twice the speed of SanDisk's previous generation P4 drives. We're talking 450MB/s reads and 340MB/s writes thanks to the latest SATA III interface, plus a max capacity of 256GB -- specs which have already enticed ASUS to use the U100 in its lightweight UX-series notebooks. Mass production is expected in Q3 of this year. Specs table and triple-shot of PR coming up after the break, plus a gallery showing size comparisons of the U100 SSD in its glorious mSATA and Mini mSATA varieties, stacked up against some common objects like a 2.5-inch SSD drive, an HP Veer, and a vaguely goth bracelet. Meanwhile, SanDisk hasn't forgotten about our desperate need for faster tablets. The company has doubled the speed of its existing iNAND embedded flash modules, and is also releasing a brand new SATA III drive, the i100, specifically for this form factor. The i100 maxes out at 128GB and achieves a significantly slower write speed (160MB/s) than the U100, but it has same impressive read speed (450MB/s) -- which should mean nippier tablets in the not-too-distant future. %Gallery-124851%
Corsair Force series gets 90GB and 180GB brothers, middle child syndrome inevitable
Corsair has added new 90GB and 180GB sizes to its blazin' fast Force Series of SSDs, growing the happy family which already included 60, 120, and 240GB versions in addition to the original 100GB and 200GB options released back in the spring. Unlike its previous siblings, both the F90 and F180 are also available immediately from Corsair dealers for suggested MSRPs of $255 and $430, respectively. Built around the lauded SandForce SF-1200 controller and capable of beastly 285MB/sec read speeds and 275MB/sec write rates, these latest releases are not too small and not too big, making them the perfect Goldie Locks drives of the SSD world. To hear the news straight from Corsair's mouth, check out the press release after the break.
Western Digital does not believe in SSDs, Santa Claus
The holidays are upon us and, at a time when many are set to celebrate their faiths and beliefs, Western Digital's Senior VP for Marketing Richard Rutledge is clarifying one of his company's: now is not the right time for SSDs. Apparently WD only "enters markets that exist," and while we could understand about him being unsure of the many spiritual entities banded about this time of year, we're rather confident the competition are believers, and they have plenty of milk and cookies laid out for holiday shoppers. Rutledge did indicate WD is looking at creating both low-end SSDs for smartphones and ultraportables as well as high-end ones for "enterprise" applications, but only "when they present appropriate opportunity." Hurry up and get with the program, WD, or you're going to be left crying and holding a lump of coal while all the other companies bring their increased revenues to show and tell.
SanDisk announces ExtremeFFS for "100 times faster" SSD write speeds
SSDs will apparently get a serious (extreme, if you will) upgrade in the coming year, with SanDisk's announcement of a new technology dubbed ExtremeFFS (Flash File System). It is, as you can possibly guess, a new file system, but it'll use page-based methods so that the data's location on the drive won't be tied to its physical space, as it is now. SanDisk says this means that random write speeds are going to be 100 times faster than they are on drives using current technology. The company hopes that this advance, coupled with other upcoming standards, will lead to widespread adoption of SSDs in PCs (and much, much more money in their pockets). That should fit in nicely with news we just heard that Microsoft's Windows 7, unlike Vista, will include optimization for use with the drives. While actual drives that carry ExtremeFFS have yet to be announced, SanDisk expects them to ship in 2009. Fun times.[Via Electronista, CNET]
