Kingston Technology, a major player in the consumer SSD segment, has recently released a new version of LSI/SandForce’s Series 5 firmware for their Hyper x/Hyper X 3K drives. The new 5.0.3 firmware apparently fixes the TRIM functionality, which was not working,in its entirety, in previous versions. Hopefully, Kingston will be only the first of many to adopt this crucial fix …

Integrated Device Technology (IDT) did well this week at Flash Memory Summit, demonstrating their 16 channel NVMe 1.0 standard PCIe SSD controller. The first publicly seen device of it’s type, the IDT controller is on the leading edge of the new NVMe standard. IDT is interested in selling their controllers to third parties rather than selling their own SSDs, but to …

Violin Memory, well known for their innovative all flash storage arrays, has announced the release of a fully integrated data management solution from Symantec meant to complement the already numerous capabilities built into their products. The new features should make it considerably easier for companies to manage and protect their sensitive data. The new functionality includes cloning, snapshots, replication and …

A ‘measuring stick’ seems to have evolved in the SSD arena where performance can be separated by the type of data being tested.  Some SSDs excel in transferring compressible data while others in incompressible data, such as we might see in music, video and photography. Our report today will evaluate the new OCZ Agility 4 256GB SSD which houses the …

Toshiba has announced it will be cutting back its supply of NAND flash memory. Toshiba didn’t state a specific reason for ramping down production, though they did talk about a general trend when it came to “weak pricing” of storage products meant for consumer electronic devices, presumably due to nothing more than waning demand for what have pretty much become …

This SSD report will be a detailed analysis of the OWC Mercury Aura Pro Express 6G SSD, the first and only third party SSD compatible with the new 2012 MacBook Air. This report will also carry things a step further by detailing our migration of the Aura Pro into our 2012 MBA, a system that we had successfully set up …

Transcend, well known for their myriad storage and memory solutions, has announced the release of its new SSD320 6Gb/s SSD. The LSI Sandforce based drive will deliver read and write speeds of up to 560MB/s and 530MB/s respectively. Also offered is random 4k performance of up to 87,000 IOPS, up from from the 60,000 IOPS seen on most garden variety SF-2281 based …

OCZ Technology, a company at the forefront of the industry when it comes to SSDs and their supporting controllers, has announced the imminent release of their Barefoot 3 SSD controller. Details concerning the controller weren’t exactly forthcoming, but it does appear to be a completely in house design, rather than a re-purposed third party product (good as it may be). …

Aside from modern FPS’s, two of the most oversaturated genres in gaming are zombie shooters, and WWII shooters. After you sift through all the trash, there are maybe two or three titles from each where you can say damn this game is great. Two of the most respected video game developers (a dying breed these days) are VALVe and Tripwire, …

Today, we’re once again forging a trail off the mainstream with a something a little more unusual than our normal fare. We have another military and industrial SSD from Telecommunication Systems (TCS) in house, and we can’t wait to scope it out. “Mission Critical Application” is any application in which failure of the Product could result, directly or indirectly, in personal injury or …