This is the first review we have conducted with the new Test Bench and we were pretty excited to see how things worked out. This picture shows the Viking Modular SSATADIMM in service and we have bordered it with a red rectangle as it is just that thin that one could easily miss it. TEST PROTOCOL To ensure consistency in …

WHY HAVENT YOU JOINED?!? We understand why members aren’t telling their friends but the truth is that the chances to win one of our giveaways are incredible!!! The first draw, a 64GB Crucial C300 was was drawn amongst a site membership of 153. This draw is much the same and, if you read the OWC Mercury Extreme Pro Rules, you …

PCB COMPOSITION The circuit board of the RunCore ProV 240GB SSD contains the SandForce SF-1200 (SF-1222TA3-SBH) processor which makes this SSD scream.  RunCore couldn’t provide us with any information with respect to a recent refresh or firmware update to the line but, as you will see in testing, this drive is a racehorse just before the gate is lifted. There …

Its about 7:30am and the start of Day 2 at CES and I am sitting in the room with very little sleep. For anyone who has never experienced CES or even Las vegas previously, much like I, there is simply no way to describe it. We began yesterday bright and early with registration at CES followed by our attendance at Storage …

We are sitting here at Storage Vision 2011 which is taking place at the Riviera Hotel in Las Vegas and putting together our first “Hot Off the Press” update after a very exciting sit down with representatives of Crucial/Micron. The topic of interest was the ‘soon to be released’ Crucial/Micron C400 SATA3 SSD. With an expected release date of March …

The home of The SSD Review is snow covered this morning with temperatures hovering at 32 DegF and we are hoping that the Buffalo Airport is not experiencing delays as we start our trip to CES 2011. Our flights depart from Buffalo to Chicago and then our first touch down in Las Vegas which we are truly looking forward to. Our …

HDTune Pro Ver. 4.60 – Random Access HDTune Pro Ver. 4.60 “ Extra Tests 4. PCMark Vantage x64 HDD Suite The SSD Review uses benchmark software called PCMark Vantage x64 HDD Suite to create testing scenarios that might be used in the typical user experience.  There are eight tests in all and the tests performed record the speed of data …

You truly know that your a computer geek when you hollar “Woot” to your first RAID results and have to call up the wife and kids to see.  Quite frankly I don’t think I will ever forget the look of confusion on her face as much as she won’t forget the look of amazement on mine.  She felt a bit …

TRIM IN RAID AND CRUCIAL REALSSDs Before we start, we need to give ample warning that TRIM does not work in RAID.  The most recent release of Intels RST package is 9.6.0.1014. Crucial C300 SSDs are ideal for RAID, more so than the competition, because they have very aggressive garbage collection, or ITGC, which works in a similar fashion to …

10.  Enable Write Caching on Device and Turn Off Write Cache Buffer Flushing. This particular point made the largest difference in performance as you will see. Press the Win7 Start Orb; Left Click ‘Computer’ Right Click on Your RAID Drive; Select Properties; Select Hardware; Double Click on Your RAID volume; Click on Policies; and Check Both Boxes. Take a look …