There are three constants evident in the storage industry in recent years, these being increased performance, increased capacity and lower pricing. We could probably include such things as product build quality and warranty in this, however, those three features traditionally have made up that golden triangle. The consumer wants value. They need a higher capacity and with media quality and …
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Bootable VROC RAID0 and 4x Intel Optane 800P SSDs
It has been some time now since Intel introduced VROC (Virtual RAID on CPU) and VROC provides for a capability on our motherboards that all would have hoped to see some time ago; the ability to create a bootable RAID configuration. At the consumer and enthusiast level, VROC is only available in newer X299 chipset motherboards at present, and these …
Read More »Intel Optane 800P SSD Review (58/118GB)
If you are in touch with storage technology at all, Intel Optane will be familiar to you and, in fact, we have even gone so far as to describe it as a ‘game changer’ or ‘disruptive technology’ in a previous report. If you are not ‘up to spec’ on the ins and outs of storage, let’s just say that SSDs …
Read More »The SSD Reviewers Guide to SSD Optimization 2018
Catch lines are everything. If you are reading this, that title has done its job and it’s now in my hands to keep you here. My name is Les Tokar and I am an SSD Reviewer. I have worked in flash media since it rolled out to the public ten years ago and have written extensively on SSDs to the …
Read More »Samsung 860 EVO M.2 SATA3 SSD Review (2TB)
There comes a time when we all just need to stop, sit back and think; take a look around and reassess our direction perhaps. The SSD industry is a beautiful example of this. SSDs were introduced some 11 years ago now, although flash technology had been in use prior. Today, there isn’t a person in the world that hasn’t been …
Read More »Western Digital My Passport Wireless SSD Review (2TB)
As a ‘somewhat’ professional photographer, I am pretty sure that my fear of loss of my work is front and center when it comes to those important camera shoots. For most, relying on trust of a single SD or flash card until you can get to a laptop is all too common. Anyone who takes pictures with any frequency can …
Read More »OWC Mercury Helios 3 TB3 Expansion Chassis Review – Kingston DCP1000 NVMe SSD On Board
For a media professional, data transfer is everything. The faster one can move and manipulate media, the more efficient the machine becomes. We take it for granted really but the massive work to perfect everything you watch on TV is incredible… and the ability to move media quickly is central to efficiency. This is where Thunderbolt 3 comes in. TB3 …
Read More »Tekq Rapide TB3 Portable SSD Review (512GB) – Worlds Fastest Portable Storage
It’s not often that something comes across our Test Bench that we really want to brag about, but when it does, watch out. Every now and then reviewers get their hands on something that even they think is special, something that always draws some very obvious questions. and something that you can bet will be with them every time they …
Read More »ASRock Ultra Quad M.2 Card Review – 4 x M.2 SSD RAID at 10GB/s and 932K IOPS
It was only a few weeks ago that ASRock announced their newest Ultra Quad M.2 Card, yet today we have it in hand and tested. The ASRock Ultra Quad M.2 Card bears a striking resemblance to the HighPoint SSD7101 RAID Controller we tested a few months back… but there are some very distinct differences that we will point out in …
Read More »Samsung 860 Pro SSD Review (4TB) – So Much Storage
To give you an idea how far we have come in solid-state storage, the very first notebook sold with an SSD was the Dell XPS M1330. It shipped with the Sandisk u5000 (my first and very embarrassing review) SATA2 32GB SSD, an SSD that would gain infamy as the first ‘stuttering SSD’ and, back then, storage capacity wasn’t an option. …
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