solid state drive
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pureSilicon's Nitro N2 and Renegade R4 SSDs go fast, resist bullying (respectively)
Mmm, speed. pureSilicon has just introduced a pair of robust new solid state drives, each of which claim their own territory in the grand scheme of accolades. The Nitro N2, which is aimed at high-end enterprise and datacenter applications, delivers 6Gb/sec and up to 130K transactions per second, not to mention protection from host power fail events. Then there's the Renegade R4, which meets MIL-STD-810F standards and features self-encryption and security features. We're told that the Nitro N2, through the use of PIPA, is able to accelerate I/O performance by up to 400 percent while also boosting lifetime terabytes written by a similar factor. As for raw specs, the N2 offers up to 1.6TB of usable MLC, under ten watts of power consumption and read / write sequential speeds of 540MBps / 520MBps. It'll be sold in 7mm and 9.5mm form factors, with pricing to start at a staggering $1,995. The R4 is engineered to meet the needs of defense, aerospace and medical customers, with up to 200GB of usable SLC, up to 60K of random read and random write IOPS, a SATA 6Gb/sec interface and up to 540MB/sec sequential read and 520MB/sec sequential write rates. It's self-encrypting beast with "military-grade, secure-erase algorithms for compliance," and the price on this guy will start at $1,155. Pre-orders are open now for a Q1 ship date, and you can dig in deeper through the press release just after the break.
Evigroup drops SmartPaddle Pro price to €699, optional head-tracking feature watches you intently
Are you and all of your friends flocking to buy that thing shown above at full retail price? Exactly. Evigroup's SmartPaddle Pro tablet is now available from €699 (under $900) for the base 10-inch configuration with no GPS, no 3G and a 32GB solid-state hard drive. Additional configurations are available with 1 or 2GB of RAM, and the high-end configuration, which includes 3G and GPS goes for under $1,500. The SmartPaddle Pro, with all the trimmings (including head-tracking), retails for around $1,530. Other specs include a 1.66GHz Intel Atom N450 processor, five hour run time, mini-HDMI port and capacitive touchscreen, none of which seem to justify the (still bloated) new price tag. Click past the break for the full video, which is apparently set to an Enya album.
RunCore outs new storage solutions for CES, Marvell-based Falcon series included
If you're looking to quell your inner storage enthusiast after the holidays, RunCore may have something to satisfy your appetite. The company announced that it has two products intended for launch at CES. The Falcon series is a Marvell-based storage solution that boasts R / W IOPS speeds that best the outfit's Pro V SATA 6Gb/s SSDs. Speaking of the Pro V series, RunCore is looking to set up shop in Ultrabooks with a 7mm model of its 2.5-inch SATA 6Gb/s SSD with 540 MB/s read and 500 MB/s write speeds. Looking for a bit more info? Hit the full PR after the break.
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.
BiTMICRO's next-gen SSD controller to deliver blazing speed and big storage in 2012
SSD controllers aren't the most glamorous chunks of silicon to be hawking, but you can make quite a name for yourself with them (just ask SandForce). BiTMICRO is betting that its next-gen platform will be something manufacturers will want in on. Targeted primarily at enterprise class devices, the as yet unnamed chips will be capable of performing 400,000 random write IOPS per second and support drives up to 5TB in size. By comparison, SandForce's SF-2000 tops out at 60,000 IOPS. Others will have time to catch up, though, BiTMICRO says the platform will be ready for "market testing" during the first half of 2012. Check out the PR after the break.
TRIM or RAID 0? SSD owners will no longer have to choose
Owners of multiple SSDs will be familiar with this dilemma: do you opt for RAID 0 to put all those precious GBs to use, or do you go for AHCI mode in order to gain TRIM support and maintain performance over time? Well, the next release of Intel's RST should support TRIM for RAID 0, so switching to solid state storage will become an even smarter decision than it is right now. [Thanks, Brian]
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.
iBuyPower intros Chimera 4 line, looks to set WoW ablaze
In need of a new liquid cooled gaming tower to help you incinerate those pesky adversaries? Perhaps you're just a fan of the fire motif? Either way, iBuyPower has introduced its new batch of fire starters: the Chimera 4 line. Take your pick of four fully loaded gaming machines, each built to suit your needs. The entire fleet sports a 120mm liquid cooling system, a Level 1 PowerDrive for overclocking and a 64GB ADATA SSD S596 Turbo. But if you're really serious about that Battlefield 3 habit, you'll splurge for the Chimera 4-V1 that houses a Intel Core i7, 8GB of RAM, an 800w power supply and an AMD Radeon 6950 2GB graphics card. The aforementioned beast will set you back $1659, while the more casual gamer can pick up less expensive models -- based on level of commitment, of course. For a closer look, take a peek at the gallery below before adding one to your Christmas list. %Gallery-139696%
Acer Aspire S3 Ultrabook with Intel Core i7 can be yours now, SSD in tow
If we got your Spidey senses tingling when we put the Core i5 powered Acer Aspire S3 Ultrabook through the wringer, you can now snag an i7 model. Need a quick refresher? The 13.3-inch beaut tips the scales at just about 3 pounds, awakes from naps with haste (in about two seconds) and features a 240GB SSD. Should you splurge for this speedy Intel Core i7 model, prepare yourself to part with $1,299. If you're looking to spend a little less -- it is the holidays, after all -- you can opt for the version we reviewed for a mere $899. Head on over to your favorite retailer to grab yours now, but don't go far without your charger... that battery life is nothing to write home about.
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%
OCZ expects to ship cheap TLC solid state drives in early 2012
It's about time triple-level-cell NAND came to life in consumer products and it looks like OCZ is blazing that trail. The company expects to release its first TLC drive early next year, with a vaunted 30 percent price reduction compared to current MLC drives, which are themselves much cheaper than SLC. The downside is shorter life expectancy, which will be as low as four years, but more durable forms of the technology are due to arrive later in 2012.
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.
OCZ RevoDrive Hybrid review roundup: a speedy and spacious storage solution
Ever since we spent some time with OCZ's RevoDrive Hybrid back at Computex, we eagerly awaited its arrival so that it could be put through its paces. Well, the time has come for the $500 storage mongrel to face the music and for us to find out if it adds up to more than the sum of its SSD and HDD parts. Hot Hardware found the RevoDrive Hybrid delivered on its promise of mind-blowing peak transfer speeds of almost 1GBps, with performance that could only be matched by dual SATA III SSDs in a RAID 0 setup. Everyone spoke well of the Dataplex software that manages the RevoDrive's caching, as it dutifully maxed out performance once it learned usage patterns. TRIM support was a welcome feature, but all noted the niggle that it must be used as the system boot device, so it can't pull duty as secondary storage. All in all, the consensus is that while the RevoDrive Hybrid may be too pricey for some, it's a darn good deal for the performance it provides. Of course, you don't have to take our word for it, so dig into the full reviews at the sources below.
LSI acquires SandForce for $370 million, looks to step up its SSD game
SandForce has been behind many an SSD in its day, but it looks like it's finally about to settle down, and get hitched. Yesterday, LSI announced plans to acquire the flash storage company, as part of a $370 million agreement. The deal brings SandForce's processors and energy efficient DuraClass technology under LSI's roof, giving the semiconductor designer some new flash firepower and an extra boost into a burgeoning market. Tangible results, of course, remain to be seen, though it's certainly not the first time these two have danced. SandForce, after all, provided the motor for LSI's WarpDrive lineup, and will presumably do much more, once the deal goes through. Pending regulatory approval, the acquisition should be finalized by the first quarter of 2012. Full PR after the break.
OCZ pushes access-time boundaries with Octane and Octane-S2 SSDs
OCZ Technology's pushing SSDs on step further this morning, with the introduction of the Octane SATA 6Gbps and Octane-S2 SATA 3Gbps SSDs. These guys promise "record-breaking access times" and up to 1TB of capacity, with Indilinx Everest internals playing things out on the inside. Oddly enough, the company claims that this is the world's first SSD to hit 1TB, but in fact, we saw the first one from pureSilicon way back in early 2009. At any rate, the company claims that these guys can deliver up to 560MB/sec of bandwidth and 45,000 IOPS, and they rely on a proprietary page mapping algorithms allow for steady mixed-workload performance. The Octane series also includes a number of features unique to Indilinx -- including latency reduction technology -- enabling both read and write access times as low as 0.06ms and 0.09ms, respectively. Aside from that 1TB flagship, there will also be 128GB, 256GB and 1TB models, and while no pricing details are being outed just yet, we're told to expect around $1.10 to $1.30 per gigabyte. Interested? They'll start shipping on November 1st.
Plextor outs limited edition M2P SSD in weirdest press release ever
"Although no specific information is available," says Plextor in its own statement, "word has it that Plextor is serious about the limited edition status" of its latest M2P SSD. In other detective work, they've discovered that the drive comes in 128GB and 256GB variants that cost $240 and $440 respectively and should be available towards the end of the month. Both models handle 6Gb/s SATA III, are powered by the "server grade" Marvell 88SS9174 controller chip and deliver up to 500MB/s reads and 440MB/s writes. Engadget suspects the full PR is right after the break.
OWC updates its Mercury Extreme Pro 3G SSD lineup, offers 30GBs for just $68
Say hello to Other World Computing's latest 2.5-inch SSD, the 30GB variant of its Mercury Extreme Pro 3G series (3Gb/s, of course). This SandForce-driven SSD may not have loads of storage, but priced at a wallet-friendly 68 bucks, it's certainly tempting if your optical drive's been gathering dust. Whether you're running an ungodly amount of Firefox tabs on a Mac or Windows machine, you'll be covered with "sustained data rates of over 275MB/s," keeping your tasks speedy. Ready to ditch the beach balls and hourglasses? It's available now from OWC and you'll find more info in the PR past the break.
Angelbird's Wings PCIe-based SSD preview and benchmarks
Storage enthusiasts (yeah, there is such a thing -- what of it?) would probably tell you that PCIe-based SSDs are a dime a dozen these days. But in all seriousness, the prices we're seeing are proof that a few more competitors wouldn't hurt. A few weeks back, Austria's own Angelbird started to ship a solution that we first heard about during 2010, and we were fortunate enough to pop a Wings PCIe SSD RAID card into our Mac Pro for testing. For years, we've been booting this up and running every single application off of its stock HDD -- a 640GB Hitachi HDE721064SLA360 (7200RPM) -- as we surmise many of you desktop owners might be. Anxious to see if these are the Wings your existing tower needs to soar? Head on past the break for our impressions. %Gallery-134642%
OCZ debuts Synapse Cache Series SSDs to compensate for your HDD's shortcomings
This really shouldn't come as much of a surprise, given some of OCZ's other offerings, but the company has outed its Synapse Cache SSDs so you don't have to suffer the speed limitations inherent in spinning disk storage. These 2.5-inch, 6 GB/s SATA drives come in 64 and 128GB flavors, and do the dual drive dance with your HDD of choice using the firms' Dataplex caching software. That nifty bit of code hastens data retrieval by dynamically managing your data, placing frequently used info on the speedy SSD, and shoving the rest on your capacious, cheap-as-chips HDD. When can you up your storage speed limit and how much will it cost? OCZ's not telling, but the drive's full performance specs can be found in the PR and source below.
Micron adds self-encryption to RealSSD C400, protects plans for world domination from prying eyes
Micron may think it's simply "bolstering user security" but, if you ask us, it seems like the company is providing the machines with a tool to protect their plans for insurrection. The RealSSD C400 SED has a special, security-focused firmware and hardware-based AES-256-bit encryption that keeps all of its precious data safe from prying eyes. The hardware self-encryption solution also frees up a computer's processor to focus on more important tasks (like planing the enslavement of mankind), rather than waste precious resources on protecting sensitive information. The C400 SED will ship sometime during Q4 in 128GB, 256GB and 512GB varieties. Price has yet to be announced, but we're not sure that Skynet really cares what the cost is. After all, it can just tell Micron's order-processing system to send a bunch out free of charge.
