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Word has finally reached the public of a ‘SandForce Driven’ SSD found native inside a new release ultra portable laptop, this being the Asus UX21 and UX31 Series.
The partnership between ASUS and AData will see the new AData XM21 mSATA SandForce based SSD available in both the UX21 and Ux31 Series.
The XM21 will contain the SandForce SF-2281 6Gbps processor which, of course, is capable of parallel 500MB/s read and write transfer speeds.
From a personal standpoint, this is great to see and we have been awaiting just this for some time now. Imagine the possibilities when you have a laptop computer capable of amazing performance and speed in a metal ‘paperthin’ chassis and weighing under 3 lbs.
The release can be found here, specs here, and let the ultra portable wars begin!!!!!! Click on the pik below and check out the excellent product experience and video!
Why doesn’t AData Technology have the XM11 SSD listed on their website? They are quick to tout their new SSD and their partnership with ASUS which is wonderful – but they seem quite relaxed in their tech support function by not having their new product, firmware update info, or TRIM procedure on their website. The product’s press/media release date was Oct 12th, and AData still fails to list the product on their website on Dec 23rd – over two months later.
Because it is not a consumer available product. Even I cannot get one to review separate to a system. It is for oem system implementation only and, as such, the manufacturer that markets the product with the drive included is responsible for all of which you had mentioned.
While I realize the XM11 is an OEM part specifically developed for the unique requirements of the Zenbook and, I’d like to learn more.
I too was taken aback by the spectacular performance of this amazing little SSD. When I saw it score almost 340MB/s in 4KB writes and over 225MB/s in 4KB/s reads in Atto I was enthralled.
Yes I know Atto fails to differentiate between random and sequential transfers and gives scores that are somewhat inflated over real-life use but it’s good for comparison.
I’m no novice to fast SSDs (both my desktop PCs boot from PCIe) but this thing is something else. According to Atto the XM11 absolutely blows the Revo3x2 out of the water in 4KB reads and writes, but the XM11’s 4KB transfers are even faster than the Revo’s 8KB and 16KB transfers.
I’d love to know how they manage this with the same SF2281 as everyone else. The fact that they had to cram everything onto one side of a tiny mSATA PCB leads me to believe that it uses high-density toggle NAND but surely Adata and Asus have come with some pretty impressive firmware.
I’m not quite ready to void the warranty on my UX21E to open it up and have a look. In all the pictures I could find, the NAND chips are either covered by a sticker or too obscured to read the part numbers.
Come on Adata, more info please. Anyone else know what NAND is in the XM11?
Hi there, are there any retail ssd’s that will fit into the zenbooks? I have a ux31e, my drive crashed and i cancelled an order because of the proprietory asus mSata ports 🙁
I am sorry no.