solid state drive
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OWC unleashes Mercury Aura Pro Express 6G SSD, peps up your 2011 MacBook Air
So, you've got a 2011 MacBook Air, and you say its SSD's read / write speeds are letting you down? Well, Other World Computing would be happy to quell your woes with its SandForce-equipped Mercury Aura Pro Express 6G. The company's latest storage upgrade steps things up from its 3Gb/s versions, promising to get your tasks zooming with consistent speeds of "over 500MB/s" (achieved by utilizing the '11 Air's SATA Revision 3.0, 6Gb/s bus). The 120GB variant will set you back a wallet-thinning $350, while 240GBs will cost you a whopping 600 bones -- hey, no one ever said performance like this comes cheap. They're available now from OWC, and you'll find full details in the PR past the break.
Kingston's high-performance KC100 SSD is S.M.A.R.Ter than yours
Good news for secure data fans who aren't fond of moving parts: Kingston's shipping a new line of security-focused solid state drives for all your info-hiding needs. Despite being touted as an enterprise product, the new line will happily sit in any SATA-capable machine you wish, smoothly chugging along thanks to its beloved SandForce DuraClass technology. It's not often you find a veritable plethora of features tucked between slabs of NAND, but these guys do have some smarts. Literally. S.M.A.R.T (Self-Monitoring, Analysis and Reporting Technology -- don'tcha know) is firmly onboard, as well as self-encrypting tech to keep any schadenfreude at bay. Beyond that, you can look forward to 6Gb/s throughput, backwards-compatibility with current SATA 2 systems, plus a pretty darn generous five years of warranty. For your cut of the action you'll be shelling out $337 (120GB), $650 (240GB) or $1,270 (480GB), depending on how much data you just can't walk away from. A not-at-all pushy infomercial is embedded after the break -- for laughs, or learning.
SanDisk working to push SSD power consumption lower, squeeze more juice out of your battery
First things first: we really need to sit down with the tech industry and have a conversation about effectively naming things. Which brings us to our next order of business: SATA DEVSLP. SanDisk is working with other companies, like Intel, Microsoft and Samsung, to develop this new standard which will drive SSD power consumption much lower than current levels. Some drives already support the cornerstone of the standard -- a new super low-power mode that draws only 5mW of juice. SATA DEVSLP would keep the storage in that energy-sipping state the majority of the time, extending battery life for Ultabooks, tablets, or whatever other gadgets may come along. Guess we know one trick Intel plans to use to reach that promised 10-days of connected standby time. Check out the PR after the break. Update: The original PR erroneously reported the low-power state as 50mW, the correct draw is 5mW.
Angelbird's PCIe-based SSD: it's real, it's shipping, it's 800MB/s
Remember that 1GB/s PCIe SSD system from Angelbird we covered a year ago? Well, the company just let us know it's finally available. The performance claims are more modest than we saw in the beta phase, but we're not distraught: the new benchmark is 800MB/s reads and 750MB/s writes, achieved with a $3000 setup including four 240GB SSD modules mounted on a Wings PCI-e card with a 32GB SSD built-in. Need to hold something back for groceries? You can't reduce the number of SSDs without slowing everything down, but four 60GB drives on the cheapest Wings Lite PCIe card ought to satisfy most thrill seekers for just under a grand. We hope Smart Modular is paying attention.
OCZ RevoDrive Hybrid merges 100GB SSD with 1TB HDD for $499
We heard about OCZ's clever crossbreed a few months ago, but couldn't be sure about pricing for this premium model. Turns out, it's significantly less than we'd guessed: $499 for a 100GB SSD and 1TB HDD happily united on a single PCI Express card. Yup, that's still a heck of a lot more than the $300 or so it'd cost to pick up a SandForce-controlled 120GB solid state beauty along with a separate 1TB SATA 6GB/s hard drive. The comparison isn't entirely fair, though, because OCZ claims its combo boosts overall performance by caching both "hot" and "cold" data, which is automatically organized between the SSD and HDD, on a single card with up to 910MB/s bandwidth and 120,000 IOPS. Nevertheless, it'll take some real-world benchmarking to determine whether the promised speed gain is worth our wages. More details in the PR after the break.
OWC Mercury Electra 6G SSD lineup updated with smaller 60GB option for $130
Looking for a peppy SSD to turbo charge your workflow and don't need a whole lot of storage capacity? Back in June, Other World Computing introduced its speedy SandForce-endowed Mercury Electra 6G SSDs with a base model priced at $230 $200 for 120GB. Now the company's added a cheaper option to keep things fast and your wallet happy. Those wanting a taste of its 556MB/s read and 523MB/s write speeds can now opt for a 60GB variation, priced at just $130. Sure, it may not be ideal for saving your entire Queen back catalog, but it could be a nifty route for faster boot-up and load times, right? It's available now from OWC. Zip past the break for the full PR.
Samsung's 6Gbps SSD gets a consumer label, October release date
Many SSDs could easily blow away that legacy spinning drive in your notebook, but there's always room for a performance boost when it comes to tech. Announced last week, Samsung's 830-series SSD packs up to 512GB of storage, and full support for SATA's 6Gbps max throughput -- a 100 percent boost over Samsung's previous gen drive. There's only one problem with last week's version: it's only available to OEMs, leaving a DIY upgrade out of the question. Well, today Samsung announced consumer availability for the same drive, letting any Joe Bag O' PC Upgrades pick one up at retail come October. Drives will be available in 64, 128, 256, and 512GB capacities, with pricing details coming at the official launch this fall. Jump past the break for the full PR, should you care to read all about the drive's "precision engineered" brushed metal enclosure, with "deep black" highlights and a "stylish and chic exterior" -- exactly the features you should be looking for in an SSD.
Intel to finally issue firmware fix for faulty 320 series SSDs (update: available now!)
When Intel first unleashed its third generation 320 series SSDs, we were thrilled with their prices that were 30 percent lower than Chipzilla's previous offerings. The love fest didn't last long, however, as many customers soon found they hadn't gotten what they paid for -- drives of all sizes were reporting only 8MB of capacity due to flawed firmware. Well, good news, storage speed demons, Intel's in the final stages of testing a firmware fix, and it'll be made available "within the next two weeks." SSD salvation's only a few days and a download away, so hit the source for the full details. [Thanks, Philip] Update: Look's like the update's live folks, so just head on over to second source link below and get all those bytes you paid for!
SandForce demos 24nm flash from Toshiba, cheaper SSDs on the horizon
SandForce, the company behind the companies that make some of the best SSDs on the market, is at it again -- this time demoing 24nm NAND flash from Toshiba at the Flash Memory Summit in Santa Clara, CA. An SF-2000 processor was matched with the new shrunk-down storage, a 6Gb/sec SATA connection, and jammed inside a 2.5-inch enclosure to deliver 500MB/sec read and write speeds. It's not the fastest we've seen, but the big news here isn't the data rates -- it's the potential for cheaper SSDs. The smaller manufacturing process means Toshiba will be able to squeeze more storage out of the same wafer of silicon and, hopefully, shrink those still somewhat bloated prices. Check out the full PR after the break.
Smart Modular's 1.6TB Optimus SSD reads up to 1GB/s, claims to be the largest and fastest
We love us a good speed record and today's comes paired with another superlative: biggest and baddest. Smart Modular Technologies just announced the Optimus SSD, a drive with up to a record 1.6TB in storage that can also read up to a gigabyte of data per second. The 2.5-inch drive also promises write speeds of 500MB/s and will be available in smaller 200GB, 400GB, and 800GB capacities, in addition to that 1.6TB monster. No word on pricing except that Smart Modular insists they'll be "cost-effective." Then again, the company expects IT departments will snap these up for corporate use, so your guess is as good as ours as to how accessible these will be for run-of-the-mill hobbyists.
OCZ's Z-Drive R4 PCIe SSD offers 2,800MB/sec, 500,000 IOPS, plenty of thrills
Hard to believe that we spotted OCZ Technology's original Z-Drive at CeBIT 2009. Just over two full years have passed, and already we've seen the 600MB/sec claims offered on that fellow eclipsed by a few successors. Today, the latest in the line is making its debut, with the Z-Drive R4 offering 2,800MB/sec and over 500,000 IOPS with a single SuperScale controller; step up to a dualie, and you'll see 5,600MB/sec transfer rates coupled with 1.2 million input-output operations per second. Not surprisingly, this guy's aimed squarely at enterprise users -- folks who can genuinely take advantage of the speed, and are willing to pay the unpublished rates (yeah, we asked!) that go along with it. It's retaining the PCIe-based form factor, and will be shipped in two standard configurations: a half height version designed for space constrained 1U servers and multi-node rackmount servers, and a full height version. Each of those will be made available with SLC / MLC NAND flash memory, and as with all of OCZ's enterprise kit, customer-specific configurations and functionality are available upon request. Full release is after the break, big spender.
SanDisk Ultra SSD heading to retailers, brings youthful exuberance to aging PCs
Who hasn't needed to upgrade their personal workstation when running short on funds? We've definitely been there. As luck would have it, SanDisk offers all of us who are a bit strapped for cash an option for improving our aging PCs. The company announced today that its latest offerings, the Ultra SSDs, are heading out to retailers as we speak. Promising 280MB / sec reads coupled with 270MB / sec write speeds, the drives provide a welcome tune-up for, ahem, experienced machines. Random speeds on these disks clock in at up to 3Gb / sec with three sizes available: 60GB, 120GB, and 240GB, ranging from $130 to $450. So save up your extra lunch money, as this is certainly a nice way to breathe new life into your current set-up without going completely broke. Who knows, maybe you can use those dollars you'll save on some of this. As for the full rundown, scope out the PR after the break.
PSA: Apple using slower SSDs in some MacBook Air models (video)
When you head to Apple's online store to configure your MacBook Air, you'll find options to increase processor speed or SSD capacity -- depending on the model you select, of course. There's no mention of flash drive speed, however, though it's now clear that not all SSDs are created equal at Apple -- not only when it comes to capacity, but also performance. Jonathan over at TLD discovered a fairly significant discrepancy when benchmarking both MacBook Air models over the weekend. The 128GB Samsung SSD in his 11-inch Air was able to achieve 246 MB/s write and 264 MB/s read speeds. When he switched to the 13-inch model, however, speeds dropped to 156 MB/s and 208 MB/s, respectively, using that notebook's 128GB Toshiba SSD. We compared speeds on two generations of 13-inch models, and confirmed Jonathan's findings. During our tests, the 256GB Samsung drive in our older model achieved 214 MB/s write and 251 MB/s read speeds, while the 128GB Toshiba drive in the new MacBook Air scored 184 MB/s and 203 MB/s during write and read tests, respectively. Overall, you're not likely to notice a significant difference during normal usage, though it's certainly an interesting find, nonetheless. [Thanks, Larry]
RunCore outs T50 6Gb/s mSATA SSD, SandForce speeds included
It's finally here: a 6Gb/s mSATA SSD, rocking those highly coveted SandForce speeds. RunCore's new T50 series offers maximum sequential reads of 550 MB/s and writes of 470 MB/s, with the help of SandForce's SF-2281 controller (formerly relegated to the big boys). The little guy's being marketed for high-end portables and offers 60GB for $198 or 120GB for $358. The outfit's also touting the new I50 line, serving up more modest 280 MB/s reads and 270 MB/s writes based on SATA 3Gb/s. The I50's targeted at tablets and laptops, and ranges from $178 for 60GB to $308 for 120GB. We'll hold our final judgement for when we see these things hit the market in late July -- until then, you can peep the full PR after the break.
OCZ, Corsair, Patriot and Crucial butt heads in SATA III SSD roundup
Another season, another SSD roundup. This go 'round, its a six-pack of SATA III units -- the speediest of the speedy -- all angling for your hard-earned greenbacks. The benchmarking gurus over at Hot Hardware have assembled quite the guide for those currently in the market, hosting up a variety of top-tier drives from the likes of OCZ Technology, Patriot, Crucial and Corsair. We'll leave the nitty-gritty for you to discover, but those hungry for spoilers will be elated to know that the SandForce-built OCZ Vertex 3 Max IOPS, Corsair Force GT and Patriot Wildfire proved to be the best performers in terms of transfer rates. That said, the whole lot managed to impress, and while the average user isn't apt to feel the real-world differences among them, there's a safe bet you aren't in that "average" crowd. Cliff's Notes? The Crucial M4 was deemed superior in terms of value, while the Vertex 3 Max IOPS and Wildfire just about tied for sheer speed.
Intel to owners of failed SSD 320s: we're 'aware of the customer sightings'
We can imagine few things more horrible than booting up your new 600GB SSD and seeing a reported capacity of 8MB. That's exactly the situation reported by users of Intel's SSD 320 series for over a month on the company's support forums, as well as on Amazon reviews. One disappointed (to say the least) user describes that very scenario, and he's not alone. According to several forum members, the problem seems firmware related and shouldn't require a recall, while Intel says it's "aware of the customer sightings." Short on meaningful details, the statement promises an update is coming with more information -- bite-sized consolation for the owners of byte-sized drives.
Corsair's speedy, flaming red Force GT SSD goes on sale this month for $149 and up
Corsair's Force GT solid-state drives caught our eye earlier this year, and their fire engine-red shells were only half the reason. These bad boys also promise up to 85,000 random write IOPS and are rated for impressive read / write speeds of 550 MBps and 525 MBps -- a shade higher than the specs being bandied-about when Corsair showed it off back in March. The drive also supports SATA 3, is backward-compatible with SATA 2, and ships with a 3.5-inch adapter that'll work with both desktops and laptops. Look for it this month in two sizes: 60GB ($149) and 120GB ($279). No word, alas, on the 240GB version that was strutting its stuff on the show floor in Hanover, Germany. PR after the break.
Sony's new VAIO Z ultraportable laptop with Power Media Dock hands-on (video)
Now that we've seen Sony's new VAIO Z in its luscious press shots, it's time to face reality and lay our itchy hands on this 13-inch ultraportable laptop, along with its eccentric expansion dock that packs both a Blu-ray drive and an AMD Radeon HD 6650M graphics chip (with 1GB of video RAM). Just as we were told by our little birdie, said dock is connected to the notebook via Light Peak -- a first for Sony -- but there's a catch: Sony's only implementing the architecture and not the connector, so for the time being, this sweet high speed connection is only compatible with the docking unit and nothing else. Anyhow, here's a quick recap: what we have here is a 1.18kg feather-light machine packing an Intel Sandy Bridge i5 (also available with an i7), 256GB SSD and 1.3 megapixel webcam, plus a matte LCD display with resolution at 1600 x 900 or an optional 1920 x 1080. Oh yes, for an extra cost, you get some sweet full HD action at just 13 inches. This upgraded display performed well in the relatively dark confines of the press event, but how it fares under direct sunlight remains to be seen. Read on for more hands-on impression. %Gallery-127316% %Gallery-127288% %Gallery-127289%
OWC Mercury Electra 6G SSDs boast big speeds, price to match
Other World Computing may specialize in upgrading aging Macs, but you don't have to own one to jam one of its new Mercury Electra 6G SSDs in your computer. The high-end SandForce Driven line of NAND drives range in size from 120GB to a far more impressive 480GB and, with the aide of 6Gb/sec SATA 3.0, can sustain write speeds of 523MB/sec and read speeds of 556MB/sec. Of course, this sort performance doesn't come cheap -- the smallest of the trio will set you back $230, while the massive 480GB model weighs in at a wallet-sapping $930. You can pick them up now from OWC if you've got a serious need for speed, and plenty of disposable income. Check out the PR after the break.
Intel's 710 'Lyndonville' and 720 'Ramsdale' SSDs see full spec leak well ahead of release
You may recall Intel's 710 "Lyndonville" and 720 "Ramsdale" enterprise SSDs outted by a leaked roadmap back in April, but details were as thin as high mountain air. Luckily, German site Computer Base has obtained what appears to be a full spec sheet for the aforementioned drives. Starting with the 710, this 25nm HET MLC -- a more durable variant of MLC -- device will come in 100GB, 200GB, and 300GB flavors, and it claims to have read and write speeds at up to 270 MB/s and 210 MB/s, respectively, along with a 3Gbps SATA connection. Things are a bit wild with the 720: not only does it have 34nm SLC chips making up the 200GB and 400GB versions, but it also boasts some truly insane read and write speeds of up to 2200 MB/s and 1800 MB/s, respectively. Yes, 2200 MB/s and 1800 MB/s, garnished by the fast 4K IOPs as well. We had our doubts initially, but looking at the previously stated 6Gbps PCIe interface and the much higher power draw, we think there's a good chance for this to come into reality. Well, only time will tell if these numbers will stick around for the Q3 launch this year -- not that our wallets will want to know, mind you. Hit the source link for the full lowdown. Update: As pointed out by our readers, it looks like the 720 will need more than 6Gbps at the PCIe bus to accommodate its maximum read and write speeds. At this point, we can only assume that there is indeed a typo somewhere -- either on the roadmap or on this table.
