SATA 3

With CPUs, graphics cards and memory, solid state drive were only a matter of time for a company such as AMD.  The AMD Radeon R7 SSD adds yet another AMD part to those who like to have matching components in their systems, but it also goes one step further. It takes advantage of a controller that has long been regarded …

Being niche in a dog eat dog tech market can be very risky. Being niche in the SSD industry is straight up crazy as NAND manufacturers price their SSDs so low that 3rd party SSD manufacturers find it very hard to compete; or they shut down.  More than a few companies have slowed, or shut down their SSD production and, …

It has been quite a while since we have seen a value oriented SSD from OCZ. Their last two releases where the Vector 150 and the Vertex 460, the latest updates to their enthusiast and mainstream drive lines. The market need for value drives is very apparent when we consider the popularity that the Samsung 840 EVO and Crucial MX100 …

At the 2014 Samsung SSD Global Summit, Samsung showcased its latest consumer SSD, the 850 PRO.  Just like the 840 PRO before it, we loved the 850 PRO’s performance and technological advances.  In fact, it is probably the best SATA 3 (6Gbps) drive on the market.  As an enterprise reviewer, I expected the normal 6-12 month wait before the 850 …

Silicon Motion (SMI)  has met with success as of late with release of their  SM2246EN SATA 3 SSD controller.  It was just under a year ago that we sat with Robert Fan to discuss the future of SM2246EN, while today it can be found in the PNY Optima, Corsair LX, as well as the ADATA SP610 of this report. Our …

Some time ago, Samsung introduced their 3D V-NAND (vertical NAND) to the world and NAND flash memory took on a whole new look with what some might call, very high aspirations.  Samsung was quick to point out that, as demands for reduced memory sizes increased, achieving a smaller footprint meant increased error rates and performance limitations. An example of this …

Last week at Computex, SanDisk announced its latest and greatest in consumer solid state drives, the SanDisk Extreme Pro 6Gbps SSD.  Targeting gamers, PC enthusiasts and media professionals, the Extreme Pro boasts performance consistency, as well as all around speed increase from its last round of consumer SSDs.  Fortunately for us, SanDisk provided 240, 480 and 960GB samples of the …

When we go back a few years, JMicron was one of the first in the SSD business to get the ball rolling and provide an SSD controller for SSD manufacturer use.  This controller was released to manufacturers in 2008 and was the JMF602 controller.  Companies such as  AData, G-Skill, Kingston, OCZ, Patriot, PQI, Runcore, Solidata, Supertalent and Transcend, were all …

Crucial has been making reliable cost effective mainstream SSDs for years now. Each new product release striving for better performance, reliability, and value. The recent release of the M550 built upon their M500, offering even better performance, but at a higher price point per GB. Because of this, Crucial needed to release a more modern lower budget drive. They had …

Angelbird has always been one of our favorite companies with respect to hardware because their quality simply can’t be touched.  For the most part, they are a small Austrian company, led by CEO Roman Rabitsch who maintains a very hands on approach, and his values are in quality and value.  Their products are hand-built and, in fact, even the casing …