All-The-SSDs

The SSD Optimization Guide Redesigned

Welcome to The SSD Review and congratulations on finding the internet’s most sought after resource in the optimization of solid state drives; The SSD Optimization Guide. The SSD Optimization Guide consists of several optimizations that will increase the longevity and performance of your SSD, these ranging from very simple to somewhat advanced in nature. All

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OCZ Vertex 4 128GB SSD Review and 1.4RC FW Comparison – SSD Steroids for Your Vertex 4

If you thought the most exciting improvements with OCZ’s new Vertex 4 firmware were reserved for the 256GB and 512GB models, you’d be wrong. As it happens, the most interesting and substantial performance improvements are to be had with the 128GB Vertex 4. We happen to have a 128GB Vertex 4 on our bench in order

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Intel 910 PCIe SSD Review – Amazing Performance Results In Both 400GB and 800GB Configurations

Our detailed analysis of the Intel 910 Series PCI Express 800GB SSD marks the beginning of Intel’s push into the PCIe SSD enterprise storage market. If the difficulty experienced reviewing this SSD is any indication of it’s caliber, the world is in for a pleasant shock as it was rather difficult to get the 910

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OWC Mercury Accelsior 480GB PCIe SSD Review – First Upgradeable PCIe SSD Hits The Streets

It was only a matter of time before the idea of expandable storage was introduced into the world of PCIe SSDs and, although we have seen a few prototypes in the last year, none have quite made it to market just yet. Our analysis of the OWC Mercury Accelsior 480GB PCIe SSD not only opens

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Crucial M4 256GB SSD At All Time Low Price Point

The fact that Crucial would be a leader in competitive SSD pricing has been front and center for quite some time now. In fact, only a few days ago we posted what we thought to be a great deal on the Crucial M4 128GB SSD as it broke the $1/GB barrier and seemed to be

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Current SSD Projects On The Go

Every now and then, it’s nice to give a bit of a heads up as to what we are working on behind the scenes at The SSD Review as it may be a good measure of articles yet to come. Having started in the SSD field back in 2007, it’s easy to say that the

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Plextor M3P 256GB SATA 3 SSD Review – Absolutely Marvell-ous Performance

Today we are going to be reporting on the Plextor M3P 256GB SATA 3 SSD. Pairing Marvell’s venerable 88SS9174 controller with the latest Toshiba 24nm Toggle Mode NAND, the Pro is not much different from the Plextor M3 SSD that we reviewed a short time ago. Aside from the new thinner 7mm chassis, the only

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Intel 910 400/800GB PCIe SSD Quick Preview – On The Bench and Pushing Out 1.9GB/s Performance

NOTE: The full review is now up, which superseeds this article: Intel 910 PCIe SSD Review – Amazing Performance Results In Both 400GB and 800GB Configurations The long awaited Intel 910 PCIe SSD is finally in our hands and we thought we might offer a quick glimpse before our full report next week. To add

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Intel 330 Series 120GB SATA 3 SSD Review – LSI SandForce Performance With Unbeatable Value

It wasn’t so long ago that we broke news of the Intel/SandForce partnership and everyone told us we were nuts.  Once again, we are here to publish another SSD first and Intel seems to be front and center once again. Our SSD analysis today will examine the Intel Series 330 SATA 3 SSD, the value

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TCS Galatea Ultra-Rugged 100GB SLC SSD Review

This report covers the TeleCommunication Systems (TCS) Galatea line of ultra-rugged SLC SSDs. Adhering to the MIL-STD-810 military specifications governing a multitude of ultra-ruggedized requirements, this SSD is designed for ultimate reliability in the harshest of environments. Designed and tested with the most hostile environments imaginable in mind, these SSDs are surely amongst the toughest

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Corsair Accelerator Series 60GB Cache SSD Review – Your System Start Up Decreases Significantly

If you haven’t heard of SSD caching as of yet, get ready for a technology that will definitely catch your eye.  SSD caching is a very simple computer upgrade that will see your system run like a race horse without any technical ‘know how’ or need to reformat whatsoever. Follow along as we work our

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SMART Storage Systems XceedStor 500S 240GB MLC Enterprise SSD Review

Our SSD analysis today will be on the SMART Storage Systems XCeedStor 500S 240GB MLC enterprise SSD and SMART hopes to cater to the exploding Light-Enterprise market with this new enterprise entry. Many users are now substituting client SSDs for more price-conscious approaches to boosting read-centric environment performance which can expose users to data integrity

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Memoright MS-701 mSATA SSD Review – SF-2281 Performance and 240GB Capacity Earns Top Marks

Our report today will examine the Memoright MS-701 mSATA SSD. The MS-701 is the first of it’s kind as it is the only SATA 3 SandForce Driven mSATA SSD in existence at the 240GB capacity point. Even better news is the fact that Memoright, a company that has remained loyal to enterprise and business sales

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Renice X3 50mm 240GB mSATA SSD Review

The Renice X3 240GB mSATA SSD will be our second review of a high capacity mSATA SSD and follows of our recent review of the Samsung PM830 256GB  mSATA SSD. While the Renice is SATA 2, with the Samsung PM830 being SATA 3, it’s value cannot be understated as it is only the second mSATA

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SMART Storage Systems XceedIOPS 2 200GB eMLC 6Gbps Enterprise SSD Review

The SMART Storage Systems XceedIOPS 2 eMLC SSD is the latest and greatest from the company with a long line of success. For SMART, who became privately owned last year, this segment of the market is ‘old hat’. With all Tier 1 OEMs as customers, they are embedded deeply into the enterprise market. Now they

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Kingston HyperX 3K 240GB SATA III SSD Review – Better Value With Incredible Performance

Our SSD report today examines the Kingston HyperX 3K 240GB SATA 3 SSD, ’3k’ signifying Kingston’s move to the more economical 3k PE (program/erase cycles) rated NAND for increased consumer value. For the typical consumer, this will mean little as their new HyperX 3k will still last years, however, interestingly enough, Kingston claims no performance

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Micron RealSSD C400 128GB mSATA SSD Review – Performance and Capacity At Under 10 Grams

It wasn’t so long ago that we had a sit down with Crucial/Micron at Storage Visions 2012 and they spoke of their SSD plans for the year, the Adrenaline Caching SSD and production of a mSATA SSD being high priorities on the list. Shortly after that venture, we reviewed the Adrenaline and here we are

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Comay Venus 3 SATA 3 240GB SSD Review

Our SSD Review today is going to examine the Comay Venus 3 SATA 3 240GB SSD. Comay is a brand of SSDs manufactured by CoreRise Electronics Ltd, one of three SSD companies located in China with the others being Renice and Runcore. The Comay line is a typical ‘SandForce Driven’ family with limited availability as

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OWC Mercury Enterprise Pro 6G 6Gbps SSD Review – OWC and LSI Combine For a Great Enterprise Entry

OWC has jumped feet first into the Enterprise space with the new OWC Mercury Enterprise Pro 6G SSD. Leveraging one of the fastest controllers on the planet, the LSI SF-2582 in tandem with Toshibas Enterprise Toggle Synchronous eMLC NAND, this SSD promises the absolute best in long term performance and endurance. OWC is also throwing

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OCZ Vertex 4 SATA 3 SSD Review – Indilinx Infused and Game Changing Performance Results

Our SSD analysis today is going to be on both the 256GB and 512GB versions of the OCZ Vertex 4 SATA 3 SSD and you are going to need to take a seat for this.  We guarantee that there has never been an SSD capable of creating such a stir in the SSD world and

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Micron RealSSD P400e 6Gbps 200GB Enterprise SSD Review

Our SSD analysis today looks at the Micron RealSSD P400e SATA 3 enterprise SSD, a new entry with a new approach to integrating SSDs into the entry-level enterprise tier. The enterprise SSD market is segmenting into several layers that suit very different needs, and this entry level MLC based SSD looks to grab the mainstream

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ADATA XPG SX900 256GB SATA 3 SSD Review – Expanded Capacity and SandForce Driven Speed

Back In February, we published an article with respect to LSI SandForce releasing code that would enable the production of ‘SandForce Driven’ SSDs with increased capacity, a whopping 7% additional capacity in fact. In other words, the consumer would see LSI SandForce performance in 64, 128, 256 and 512GB drives vice the standard SF capacities

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Runcore ProV Max 240GB 6Gbps SSD Review – The Gold SSD Earns The Gold Seal Once Again

Our SSD analysis today is of the Runcore ProV Max 240GB SATA 3 SSD.  Most recently, we reviewed the 120GB version of this same SSD and it did so well, we challenged Runcore to up their standing on our Hierarchy Chart as we know that 240GB SSDs have just that little bit more push in

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BIWIN S836 Elite SATA 3 120GB SSD Review – Top Vantage Performance Achieved

This report is an analysis of the newly released BIWIN S836 Elite SATA 3 120GB SSD and if you haven’t heard of BIWIN prior to this report,  you wouldn’t be the first as we learned of them only a few weeks ago while at CeBIT 2012 in Germany. In fact, we had every intention of

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Samsung 830 Series SATA 3 512GB SSD Review – Amazing Performance and an Unbeatable Toolbox

Samsung’s experience with SSDs didn’t start with the 830 Series SSD. Samsung can rightfully claim to be one of the originators of solid state storage as it is currently known and the 830 is the culmination of that knowledge and experience. Based around a lineup of 27nm Toggle NAND, 256MBs of low power DRAM, and

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Super Talent RAIDDrive upStream 220GB PCIe SSD Review – Plug and Play, Bootable and 1GB/s Speed

Our report today will be an exclusive pre-release review of the upcoming Super Talent RAIDDrive upStream PCIe SSD. Although release dates and prices of the upStream have yet to be announced, it might be a safe bet that the upStream will be the second PCIe SSD to reach consumer hands , although it will also

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Plextor M3 256GB SATA 6Gb/s Review – Another Win for The Marvell 9174 Controller

Today’s SSD landscape consists of two major players, LSI SandForce and Marvell, both of whom seem to be in a cat fight for top spot with several companies using their controller architecture in their respective SSD products. Plextor has wisely chosen the server-grade Marvell 88SS9174 Marvell processor for their M3 and our report will give

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Crucial M4 Adrenaline 50GB Cache SSD Review – Watch Your Hard Drive Perform Like an SSD

If you own a desktop computer, or even a dual drive laptop computer, and you haven’t considered the advantages of solid state drives yet, this review is going to open your eyes. Our review today will examine the Crucial Adrenaline SATA 3 50GB Caching SSD and how it fits into the consumer market.  We will

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Avnet Embedded Assembles The Best In The SSD Industry For FREE SSD Virtual Summit on April 3/4

Whether it be consumer or industry, anybody seriously looking at solid state drives today has become familiar with such names as Crucial/Micron, Intel, Kingston and OCZ in the client world along with Adaptec, Dell, Hitachi, LSI, Rorke Data, Seagate, Smart Storage Systems, STEC and Toshiba in the business and enterprise world. So what would you

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SanDisk Extreme 240GB SATA 3 SSD Review – Equal 4k Read/Write IOPS Performance Observed

SanDisk has finally jumped full tilt back into the world of SSDs and our report today will introduce you to the use of yet another brand of NAND flash memory that we haven’t seen in any SATA 3 SSDs, at least that I am aware of. The benefit, of course, is that this memory is

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Toshiba MK4001GRZB 400GB SAS 6Gb/s Enterprise SLC SSD Review

Our SSD review today will be on the Toshiba MK4001GRZB 400GB SAS 6Gb/s Enterprise SLC SSD and will be the first to undergo our new Enterprise Test Protocol. This SSD brings with it some of the best sustainable performance in the realm, and also has recently taken the Grand Prize for Excellence in Energy Efficiency

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The SSD Review Solid State Storage (SSS) Enterprise Test Protocol

A casual reader of The SSD Review has probably grown accustomed to seeing the huge RAID numbers from any number of our RAID tests as well as the great results seen in our evaluations of consumer SSDs. We do have a penchant for throwing around numbers in excess of 450,000 IOPS and 4GB/s throughput in

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MyDigitalSSD 32GB Super Cache mSATA SSD Review

In taking a close look at the need for mSATA SSDs in today’s SSD arena, it just doesn’t really seem clear as to why manufacturers are jumping into the mSATA fold so quickly. We might be able to say that the push to market of mSATA SSDs has become a trend, in fact. Our analysis

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OWC Mercury Elite-AL Pro Dual Mini RAID Data Storage/Backup Review

OWC has a great range of external storage solutions for both Mac and PC users. With the Elite Pro offerings addressing the desktop solutions, in quad, dual and single Bay formats, there is a need for that “portable” offering that can come in so handy for users on-the-go. This is the slot that the Mercury

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ASUS Zenbook SSD Review – Not Necessarily SandForce Driven Hits A Speed Bump

If we told you that we spent $2400 to right a wrong in proving something that you as a consumer should be aware of, would you believe us? This report closely examines the ASUS Zenbook.  Within the ‘Zen’, ASUS may provide either of two SATA 3 SSDs, these being the AData ‘SandForce Driven’ XM11 or

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Samsung PM830 SATA 3 256GB mSATA SSD Review – Ultrabooks To Gain Capacity and SATA 3 Speed

Today’s SSD exclusive is going to be a first look at Samsung’s new PM830 SATA 3 mSATA 256GB SSD. This SSD is rather unique as it is one of the first SATA 3 SSDs to be released at the 256GB capacity range and, although laptops and ultrabooks that can utilize it are still limited to

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LSI Releases Code To Manufacturers – New Increased Capacity ‘SandForce Driven’ SSDs Hit The Streets

Up until this morning, the most recognizable characteristic of a ‘SandForce Driven’ SSD was the fact that it’s capacities were always 60, 120, 240 or 480GB, unlike the standard of 64, 128, 256 and 512GB. This was a strong clue which supported our belief that LSI SandForce and Intel had teamed up for manufacture of

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Intel Core i7-3820 Quad-Core CPU Review – Get Ready for Some Great 5.0 GHz Speeds!

Today’s review will be just a bit different as we transition from the typical SSD review to that of CPU as Intel was nice enough to send along a newly released Sandy Bridge E i7-3820 for us to take a look at. The timing of this review couldn’t be more appropriate as many will be

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Runcore ProV Max 120GB SSD Review – Runcore Strikes Gold With SandForce Premium Firmware

It was just over a year ago that we analyzed the Runcore ProV 3Gbps 240GB SSD as one of the top SSDs available, then surpassing some RAID configuration performance results. As amazing as that review was, it now stands to be a great example of how far SSD technology has progressed this past year. This report

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HighPoint 2720SGL RocketRAID Controller Review – Amazing 3GB/s Recorded With 8 Crucial C400 SSDs

Our recent RAID review of three Intel 520 SSDs on the Highpoint 2720SGL 6Gbps RocketRAID Controller opened our eyes as we didn’t think performance of 1.5GB/s could be reached with three SSDs. Those results were just a taste of what was yet to come as we simply had to throw eight Crucial M4 256GB SATA

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Understanding SSD Advertised Performance and Its Purchase Implications – An SSD Primer

Today’s SSD close up is going to teach us the most valuable thing we can ever learn about an SSD. This is the fourth paper in a series of articles that explain the benefits, types and components of a solid state drive and will go so far as to make up our SSD Beginners Guide. 

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Intel 520 SSD Review (Round Two) – RAID Testing at 1.5GB/s With Highpoint 2720SGL RAID Controller

Our release yesterday of our Intel 520 SSD Review (Round One) was probably one of the most anticipated events seen yet in the SSD arena and, if sales can be determined by the extreme numbers of readers who visited the site, Intel will do very well. In that review we made a promise, this being

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Intel 520 240GB SSD Review (Round One) – Intel Releases Amazing SATA 3 SandForce Driven SSD

Well I guess the secrets out by now.  Intel has this morning officially released it’s new enthusiast level Intel 520 Series SSD and it is none other than ‘SandForce Driven’.  What’s that, you say!? Our report today is a complete analysis of the Intel 520 240GB 6Gbps SSD and I would be remiss if I didn’t

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Kingston SSDNow V+ 200 120GB SATA III SSD (Upgrade Bundle Kit) Review

It has been a while since a new Kingston release has come along and our last Kingston SSD Review was an extremely favorable one examining the Kingston HyperX Enthusiast Class SSD. It earned our Editor’s Choice Award.  In fact, I still use the very attractive HyperX mini-tool that came with that kit daily. Today, we

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MyDigitalSSD ‘Bullet Proof’ 128GB mSATA SATA 2 SSD Review

Our evaluation today will be a detailed analysis of the MyDigitalSSD 128GB 50mm ‘Bullet Proof’ mSATA SSD and the price point ( a mere $179.99) and timing of this SSDs arrival couldn’t be better. Considering the latest entries of laptops with dual mSATA/HDD storage access along with the first round of new Ultrabook family releases,

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Samsung SSD SM825 400GB Enterprise SSD Review – 3Gbps eMLC Data Center Edition

In reviewing the Samsung SSD SM825 Data Center Edition 400GB eMLC solid state drive, we understand that we have wandered off the beaten path of normal consumer reviews but there are some things in this SSD that will just grab your attention. Although it’s interesting to see that Samsung has chosen its own premium eMLC

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OCZ Nocti 120GB mSATA SSD Review – Great Performance Weighs In At Less Than 10 Grams

The OCZ Nocti SATA 2 120GB mSATA SSD is on our bench today and, “Welcome to the Year of the mSATA SSD!” Three years ago, one wouldn’t have imagined that we could get such power from an SSD that is 1/3 the size of a business card and the height of a 25 cent piece. 

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Silicon Power V30 SATA 3 240GB SSD Review

A short time ago we reviewed the Silicon Power Velox V20 120GB SSD which just so happened to be one of the few SATA 2 drives that we had seen in 2011; the world has gone SATA 3. To say the least, it was rather unique as it was the first to contain Hynix NAND

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Kupa X11 Windows Tablet With 128GB SSD Review – Convenience of a Tablet With The Power of a PC

Just prior to CES we had received an e-mail from a reader who had spoken of a company called Kupa, a tablet manufacturer who, as the reader had stated, “wasn’t afraid to experiment outside the box”. It took us all of two seconds to get to the Kupa Website and discover the Kupa X11, a

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Super Talent TeraDrive Nova 240GB SATA 3 SSD Review

So we were just winding down from CES 2012 last week and bidding adieu to many of our friends for another year when we popped by the Super Talent booth. Our relationship with ST goes back a few years and Peter Carcione, Super Talents Director of Marketing, is a good friend who always seems to

   

OCZ Vertex 4 Receives Much Anticipated Firmware Update Promising Higher Performance

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Just over a month ago, OCZ released it’s new Vertex 4 6Gbps SSD which garnished industry praise as a result of it’s ability to handle highly incompressible data such as movies, photographs and music, however, many felt the V4 was a little conservative when testing in compressible data. To most, this might never be noticeable

OWC Mercury Accelsior 480GB PCIe SSD Review – First Upgradeable PCIe SSD Hits The Streets

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It was only a matter of time before the idea of expandable storage was introduced into the world of PCIe SSDs and, although we have seen a few prototypes in the last year, none have quite made it to market just yet. Our analysis of the OWC Mercury Accelsior 480GB PCIe SSD not only opens

Crucial M4 256GB SSD At All Time Low Price Point

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The fact that Crucial would be a leader in competitive SSD pricing has been front and center for quite some time now. In fact, only a few days ago we posted what we thought to be a great deal on the Crucial M4 128GB SSD as it broke the $1/GB barrier and seemed to be

Current SSD Projects On The Go

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Every now and then, it’s nice to give a bit of a heads up as to what we are working on behind the scenes at The SSD Review as it may be a good measure of articles yet to come. Having started in the SSD field back in 2007, it’s easy to say that the

Plextor M3P 256GB SATA 3 SSD Review – Absolutely Marvell-ous Performance

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Today we are going to be reporting on the Plextor M3P 256GB SATA 3 SSD. Pairing Marvell’s venerable 88SS9174 controller with the latest Toshiba 24nm Toggle Mode NAND, the Pro is not much different from the Plextor M3 SSD that we reviewed a short time ago. Aside from the new thinner 7mm chassis, the only

Hitachi Announces SAS 12 Gbps SSD Capable of 4.8GB/s Performance

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Hitachi Global Storage Technology, well known for their high performance storage solutions, has unveiled the very first SAS 12 Gbps SSD which is capable of a total available interface bandwidth of 4.8GB/s per drive. The SAS 12Gbps interface represents the highest performance interconnect seen on SSDs thus far, aside from PCIe of course. The new

Crucial M4 128GB SATA 3 SSD Breaks $1/GB Barrier

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It has been a long time coming but seeing SSDs break that $1/GB barrier is becoming pretty common these days. In fact, yesterday, Amazon sold out of the M4 128GB SATA 3 SSD at $128.99 so what did they do?  They dropped the price to $124.99 and increased availability significantly. If you were ever on

New SanDisk Extreme SSD Firmware Fixes TRIM

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We took a look at the SanDisk Extreme a few months ago, and found it to be one of the fastest drives on the market, combining the tried-and-true SandForce 2281 with Toshiba’s 24nm Toggle NAND. A new FW update for the Extreme promises to fix TRIM for the drive. When being used in IDE mode

Permabit’s Albireo Dedupe Technology Lowers The Cost Of Enterprise Flash

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Permabit’s Albireo Data deduplication technology is now supporting enterprise level flash technologies. By deduplicating data before it ever hits the flash, Permabit is claiming it can reduce the cost of enterprise flash storage by 5x to 35x. Not because the enterprise solid state device is somehow cheaper thanks to Albireo, but because you don’t need as