We all know OCZ as one of the top names in the SSD market. Believe it or not just a few years ago their main focus was enthusiast memory! The popular 3rd party solid state drive controller that everyone has been using over the past year or so has been the SandForce SF-2281 chip. Because so many companies are using the same controller the solid state drive market has become saturated with the same type of drives that offer just about the same performance. OCZ wants to remain a big player in the solid state drive market and with their purchase of Indilinx last year they made that very apparent. Earlier this year OCZ announced the second generation Everest solid state drive controller (Everest 2) and the Vertex 4 is the first consumer drive to use this controller. With rated speeds of 560MB/s read and 510MB/s write it is set to compete very well with SandForce-based drives. Read on as we check out this new drive from OCZ!
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ADATA recently released their SP800 and SP900 solid state drives. The only real difference between these drives is that the SP900 is a SATA 6G drive and the SP800 is a SATA 3G drive. Now these drives are also a little bit different from other solid state drives we have taken a look at in the past as they are some of the first 0-provision drives. This means instead of reserving 7% of the drive for provisioning it reserves nothing. We will get into all of that next week in the full review, but in the meantime check out our unboxing and overview video.
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Solid State Drives are becoming more and more common. I think I big reason for this is because people realize that they will give them the performance boost that they want when added to their system. The market seems to be flooded with drives and it is really hard to choose which one to get. One of the main determining factors to many people is the price. Kingston’s new HyperX 3K solid state drive is designed to be very inexpensive as it uses cost effective NAND rated for 3000 program / erase cycles. We will explain what all that means later on in the review. This drive still sports the very popular SandForce SF-2281 controller and of course the quality you expect from Kingston. Read on as we check it out!
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The Crucial M4 solid state drive was one of the most popular and most successful solid state drives of 2011. Much of that success can be attributed to Crucial’s reputation for reliable, quality-made products and because they are one of the largest memory producers out there. When the M4 first came out it only had a rated read speed of 415MB/s, which is pretty far off from what we’ve seen from other solid state drives in 2011. Towards the end of 2011 Crucial released a firmware upgrade that boosted the rated speeds to 500MB/s read and 260MB/s write. A nice improvement! So today we have the M4 in our labs and we will be taking it through the paces.
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Crucial is one company we have not seen a solid state drive from in some time. Well they have a new SATA 6GB/s solid state drive in their Marvell-based M4 drive. This drive has read speeds of up to 500MB/s and write speeds of up to 260MB/s. We just received the M4 256GB model and we are going to open it up and show you how it comes and take it apart to show you how it is built. Read on to check out our unboxing and overview video!
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The term “caching drive” is something that many people are becoming accustomed to as are we. We really started seeing these caching drives when Intel came out with their Z68 chipset that allowed you to add a smaller solid state drive to your existing drive, which would increase overall performance. This is great for people who have an Intel Z68 motherboard, but what about everyone else? This is where OCZ’s Synapse Cache drive comes in. It is a SATA 6GB/s solid state drive, but comes with software that allows you to make it a caching drive on any PC system. Read on as we check it out!
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Today we are unboxing a rather small hard drive in terms of capacity as it is only 64GB. This drive is only 64GB because it is made to be a caching drive that is combined with your normal hard drive for improved performance. Since the release of the Z68 chipset from Intel we have been seeing these drives, but OCZ has their own software that enables this drive to become a caching drive on any PC system, not just an Intel Z68 system. Read on as we unboxing this drive and even open it up!
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Over the past year OCZ has really made a huge push into the solid state drive space with their purchase of Idilinx, makers of flash controller silicon and software for solid state drives. This year at CES OCZ was showing off what that purchase was all about – the Everest II platform. We were shown demos of the Everest II and what it could do. Also OCZ does have a Thunderbolt drive named lightfoot. Read on to check it all out!
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If you know anything about Kingston you know their HyperX line. HyperX is the name they give all of their high-end products. Kingston entered the solid state drive market with the SSDNow series of drives, but it was about time the put the HyperX name on a solid state drive. The HyperX solid state drive is a SATA 6GB/s drive powered by the SandForce SF-2281 controller, 25nm Intel NAND and boasts speeds of 555MB/s read and 510MB/s write. Kingston sent us the upgrade kit that includes a USB enclosure, 3.5-inch mounting bracket, SATA data cable, screwdriver and hard drive cloning software. Let’s take a look…
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Silicon Power is not a name you really think about when you think about solid state drives. If you did not know Silicon Power was founded in 2003 and they mainly specialize in memory products. Today we are going to take a look at one of their first SATA 6GB/s drives the Velox Series V30. This drive is powered by the SandForce SF-2281 controller and boast speeds of 550MB/s read and 500MB/s write. Let’s check it out!
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