Archive for: ssd
Hate your wallet? Punch it in the face with one of OCZ’s new super speedy (and potentially very expensive) SSDs from the Octane series. The technology, recently acquired by way of acquisition back in March, will allow for super fast 570 MB/s read and 400 MB/s write speeds and feature up to 45,000 read IOPS. Not only that, the new Octane series drives will come in a vast assortment of capacities starting at 128 GB and jumping all the way up to a full terabyte. A less impressive but still plenty capable SATA II variant of the Octane line will pack 275/265 MB read/write speeds and 30,000 random 4K IOPS.
Speeds aside, OCZ is touting the new Indilux-powered drives’ increased write cycles: 3,000-5,000 PE write cycles for the old, non-Indilux compared to the newer (Indilux) spec of 6,000-10,000. Other items of interest include 512 MB of DRAM AES encryption and TRIM support, and finally, NCQ support.
Pricing hasn’t been outed yet but don’t expect the 1 TB SATA III option to approach anything remotely close to “affordable”. OCZ is aiming for ~$1.10-$1.30/GB meaning even at the lowest end you’re looking at $1,100 for a terabytes worth of solid state storage. Still, compared to what you could get in solid state storage just a couple of years ago, $1,100 is actually quite good.
- September 16, 2011 11:13 am
If you happen to be a multi-million dollar corporation (or a normal citizen with a small fortune buried in the back yard) Intel has something you’ll want to take a look at, especially if uber-fast SSDs are your thing. Today the company took the wraps off of their next-gen 710 series SSDs which look to trounce the outgoing X25-E Extreme model thanks to the 710′s use of 25-nanometer MLC flash memory.
So just how fast are the new drives? According to Intel’s own tests 5 710 SSDs were able to meet and even exceed the performance of a separate array in their data center which used 90 x 15,000 RPM HDDs.
Before you get too excited, put the wallet down, take a look at the price, and weep because you’ll never be able to afford them. In batches of 1,000 the 100 GB is the most reasonable at $649 with the 200 GB option going up to $1,289. But it is the 300 GB Intel 710 that makes us the saddest — $1,929. Of course, if you’re Google looking to outfit an entire data center with these things, it’s nothing but pocket change. First world problems…
If you want the fastest of fast solid state drive, getting even the fastest SATA III hardware you can find pales in comparison to OCZ’s latest Z-Drive R4 PCIe SSD. Because of the nature of PCI in general, the potential for performance is much higher. Nothing highlights this fact better than simple directing your to OCZ’s advertised 2800 Mbps transfer speeds and 500,000 I/O operations per second.
With a price tag that surely costs as much as a small island, it goes without saying consumers aren’t the main focus here. Instead, OCZ is marketing this blazing hardware to enterprise users and cloud computing outfits who want the absolute best in reliability and of course, speed.
If you’ve got the mini Fort Knox that is required to fund such a fine piece of hardware, the only thing you have left to do is decide — full or half height and SLC or MLC memory.
Already picked up a fancy Mushkin SSD and paired it with a super sexy pack of Mushkin RAM? Why not make your hardware party the perfect trifecta? Popular SSD and RAM manufacturer, Mushkin, is branching out into uncharted waters today with the announcement of their new line of SD and microSD cards.
Starting at the lower end, the Class 2 cards will come only in 2 GB capacities while moving up a level to Class 4 opens the doors to larger 4 GB, 8 GB, and 16 GB capacities. The more enticing top of the line Class 10 cards will ship in 8 GB, 16 GB, and 32 GB capacities and feature 10 MB/s transfer speeds.
Ending on a good note, it appears that pricing won’t break the bank. The high-end 32 GB SDHC Class 10 card retails for a reasonable $57.94. Whataya say…?
Being an early adopter is certainly rewarding. The excitement it brings to your nerdy little heart is incomparable to just about anything else. That is of course assuming your early adopter mentality doesn’t bite back. First-run products can often have many problems that later get ironed out in future revisions.
Today, early adopters of Corsair’s new Force Series 3 SSDs are finding that out the hard way. The company has officially issued a recall on the 120 GB model (serial number: CSSD-F120GBG3-BK) specifically, citing firmware and hardware problems including freezing, detection errors and BSOD errors that ultimately cause the drives to deliver less than optimal/advertised speeds far below official specifications.
The 60GB (CSSD-F60GBG3-BK) and 240GB (CSSD-F240GBG3-BK) F3 SSDs as well as the and Force GT SSDs are not affected. Users with the bad drives are instructed to send the unit back to Corsair regardless if poor performance has been witnessed or not in exchange for a new drive. Thankfully, Corsair will be eating all shipping costs. Turn around time is estimated at ~10 days.
Still have questions? Ask Corsair in their User Support Forums.
SSDs are still a rather pricey option next to their traditional HDD siblings, but that isn’t stopping Buffalo from throwing caution (and cash) to the wind with their 512 GB N512S/MC400 SATA III drive. Performance for said drive isn’t the fastest we’ve seen in the post-SATA II world at a touch over 400 MB/s (read), though it’s hard to find fault when you’ve got 512 GB to work with.
Last week Buffalo announced the smaller capacity 256 GB version of the same drive for 72,200 Yen ($883 USD). Seeing as how SSD prices tend to double equally with capacity, we’re looking at a $1,500+ drive. With that said, official pricing and availability have not yet been released.
The article posted last night concerning some leaked Intel Larsens Creek SSDs compliments of motherboard manufacturer ASRock gets a much warranted boost in scope this morning. Engadget has snagged Intel’s entire 2011 roadmap detailing not only the Larson Creek SSDs we saw last night, but a total of five new SSD lines coming this year. Everything from SLC PCI cards (Ramsdale/720 series) to even faster MLC SATA drives (Cherryville/520 series) in capacities ranging from 64GB to 480GB are on order.
The SLC PCI cards will no doubt blow all of the SATA drives out of the water, though said speed comes at a hefty price. As for SATA-based drives, Intel has both SATA 3.0Gbps (Lyndonville/Paint Creek/Larsen Creek) and SATA 6.0Gbps (Cherryville) planned in a wide range of capacities to suit everyone’s needs.
The action starts in Q3 of this year.
When products get delayed, we become sad. When products get launched ahead of schedule, we are surprised and happy. But when products are leaked ahead of schedule against someone’s wishes, we get an almost sick sense of happiness.
On that note, a slide from a PDF flyer for ASRock’s upcoming Z68 Extreme4 motherboard let slip some information about Intel’s upcoming Larsen Creek SSDs. Specifically in the above image, pairing one of Intel’s spiffy new SSDs with a traditional HDD will net you some pretty impressive performance compliments of SSD caching.
We’re just hoping Intel doesn’t price Z68 (since it’s their high-end enthusiast platform and all) too far out of consumers’ hands as we’d love to get a few pieces of said hardware.
The rumor we reported yesterday concerning Seagate acquiring an apparently money bleeding hard drive business from Samsung is in fact true. Today, both companies will officially announce the joint venture in which we’ll see Seagate taking over all hard disk technology and operations from Samsung. The deal will reportedly cost Seagate $1.375 billion — %50 cash and %50 stock — and also secure Seagate a more solid path in the SSD market moving forward as they will be supplied with Samsung flash memory. The deal is expected to close in late 2011.
Now that the details are out, it’s reassuring to see Samsung still maintaining their SSD ambitions as that’s where the future as at. Not to mention, Samsung’s consumer line of SSDs are actually very good. Here’s to hoping Seagate can continue providing the top-tier performance Samsung HDDs (or at least adopt the technology) have come to be known for.
