Oct 31

Engadget Primed: SSDs and you

Posted in: HP, intel, solid state drive, SolidStateDrive, SSD, storage, Today's Chili, video

Primed goes in-depth on the technobabble you hear on Engadget every day — we dig deep into each topic’s history and how it benefits our lives. You can follow the series here. Looking to suggest a piece of technology for us to break down? Drop us a line at primed *at* engadget *dawt* com.

If you’re a storage aficionado — and who here isn’t? — you’ve probably heard a lot about SSDs, those friendly solid-state disks promising dramatically improved performance over their magnetically inclined brethren. No doubt you’ve heard about the advantages, thanks to NAND storage that makes them silent, shock resistant, energy efficient and lightning quick. Yet you’ve also heard the horror stories: drive slowdowns, controller failures and manufacturer recalls. And adding to all those anxiety-producing headlines, there’s the price premium. While most magnetic drives average around a nickel or dime per gigabyte, even consumer-grade SSDs still run $1-2 per gigabyte, often for drastically smaller-capacity drives.

Three years ago, Intel launched its X25-M and X18-M: the “M” stood for “mainstream,” and the pair of drives were designed to reintroduce solid-state storage to a cost-conscious consumer market. (Perhaps more importantly, they were also meant to solidify Intel’s standing in the nascent SSD realm, up to that point a chaotic, Wild West-style domain. But we’ll get to that.) For most users magnetic drives still remain king, with solid states appealing primarily to a niche of enterprise IT professionals and modding enthusiasts. How did that happen — and should it be different? After the break we’ll look at how and why SSDs haven’t (yet) conquered the storage world, and examine whether they’re poised to do just that.

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Engadget Primed: SSDs and you originally appeared on Engadget on Mon, 31 Oct 2011 16:46:00 EDT. Please see our terms for use of feeds.

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Oct 27

OCZ RevoDrive Hybrid review roundup: a speedy and spacious storage solution

Posted in: hard drive, HardDrive, Reviews, solid state drive, SolidStateDrive, SSD, Today's Chili

Ever since we spent some time with OCZ’s RevoDrive Hybrid back at Computex, we eagerly awaited its arrival so that it could be put through its paces. Well, the time has come for the $500 storage mongrel to face the music and for us to find out if it adds up to more than the sum of its SSD and HDD parts. Hot Hardware found the RevoDrive Hybrid delivered on its promise of mind-blowing peak transfer speeds of almost 1GBps, with performance that could only be matched by dual SATA III SSDs in a RAID 0 setup. Everyone spoke well of the Dataplex software that manages the RevoDrive’s caching, as it dutifully maxed out performance once it learned usage patterns. TRIM support was a welcome feature, but all noted the niggle that it must be used as the system boot device, so it can’t pull duty as secondary storage. All in all, the consensus is that while the RevoDrive Hybrid may be too pricey for some, it’s a darn good deal for the performance it provides. Of course, you don’t have to take our word for it, so dig into the full reviews at the sources below.

OCZ RevoDrive Hybrid review roundup: a speedy and spacious storage solution originally appeared on Engadget on Thu, 27 Oct 2011 07:37:00 EDT. Please see our terms for use of feeds.

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Oct 27

LSI acquires SandForce for $370 million, looks to step up its SSD game

Posted in: business, deal, flash, green, minipost, money, solid state drive, SolidStateDrive, SSD, Today's Chili

SandForce has been behind many an SSD in its day, but it looks like it’s finally about to settle down, and get hitched. Yesterday, LSI announced plans to acquire the flash storage company, as part of a $370 million agreement. The deal brings SandForce’s processors and energy efficient DuraClass technology under LSI’s roof, giving the semiconductor designer some new flash firepower and an extra boost into a burgeoning market. Tangible results, of course, remain to be seen, though it’s certainly not the first time these two have danced. SandForce, after all, provided the motor for LSI’s WarpDrive lineup, and will presumably do much more, once the deal goes through. Pending regulatory approval, the acquisition should be finalized by the first quarter of 2012. Full PR after the break.

Continue reading LSI acquires SandForce for $370 million, looks to step up its SSD game

LSI acquires SandForce for $370 million, looks to step up its SSD game originally appeared on Engadget on Thu, 27 Oct 2011 02:45:00 EDT. Please see our terms for use of feeds.

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Oct 21

ASUS Zenbook gets taken apart, finds the peace within

Posted in: ASUS, intel, SSD, teardown, Today's Chili, ultraportable

It’s certainly not very Zen, but AnandTech has pried open ASUS’ 11.6-inch ultrabook to see exactly what makes it all tick. The Zenbook’s innards are all tightly packed together inside the oh-so-thin casing, with the UX21’s slim-line cooler covering both of the Intel Core i7-2677M processors. The 128GB model has been given an ADATA SDD, while the bigger 256GB version runs on SanDisk storage, with the WiFi card contorted to squeeze inside the aluminum alloy body. ASUS has extended its design sensibilities outside of the tightly-packed casing, with the Microsoft serial number and certificate transplanted to the power unit, which leaves the Zenbook’s slick design lines and finish peacefully untainted. Those desperate for more details on the rig’s workings and accessories can find inner calm at the link below.

ASUS Zenbook gets taken apart, finds the peace within originally appeared on Engadget on Fri, 21 Oct 2011 09:10:00 EDT. Please see our terms for use of feeds.

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Oct 20

OCZ pushes access-time boundaries with Octane and Octane-S2 SSDs

Posted in: solid state drive, SolidStateDrive, SSD, storage, Today's Chili

OCZ Technology’s pushing SSDs on step further this morning, with the introduction of the Octane SATA 6Gbps and Octane-S2 SATA 3Gbps SSDs. These guys promise “record-breaking access times” and up to 1TB of capacity, with Indilinx Everest internals playing things out on the inside. Oddly enough, the company claims that this is the world’s first SSD to hit 1TB, but in fact, we saw the first one from pureSilicon way back in early 2009. At any rate, the company claims that these guys can deliver up to 560MB/sec of bandwidth and 45,000 IOPS, and they rely on a proprietary page mapping algorithms allow for steady mixed-workload performance. The Octane series also includes a number of features unique to Indilinx — including latency reduction technology — enabling both read and write access times as low as 0.06ms and 0.09ms, respectively. Aside from that 1TB flagship, there will also be 128GB, 256GB and 1TB models, and while no pricing details are being outed just yet, we’re told to expect around $1.10 to $1.30 per gigabyte. Interested? They’ll start shipping on November 1st.

Continue reading OCZ pushes access-time boundaries with Octane and Octane-S2 SSDs

OCZ pushes access-time boundaries with Octane and Octane-S2 SSDs originally appeared on Engadget on Thu, 20 Oct 2011 09:00:00 EDT. Please see our terms for use of feeds.

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Oct 14

Plextor outs limited edition M2P SSD in weirdest press release ever

Posted in: solid state drive, SolidStateDrive, SSD, Today's Chili

“Although no specific information is available,” says Plextor in its own statement, “word has it that Plextor is serious about the limited edition status” of its latest M2P SSD. In other detective work, they’ve discovered that the drive comes in 128GB and 256GB variants that cost $240 and $440 respectively and should be available towards the end of the month. Both models handle 6GB/s SATA III, are powered by the “server grade” Marvell 88SS9174 controller chip and deliver up to 500MB/s reads and 440MB/s writes. Engadget suspects the full PR is right after the break.

Continue reading Plextor outs limited edition M2P SSD in weirdest press release ever

Plextor outs limited edition M2P SSD in weirdest press release ever originally appeared on Engadget on Fri, 14 Oct 2011 09:39:00 EDT. Please see our terms for use of feeds.

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Oct 06

Samsung Series 7 Slate now up for pre-orders, shipping date still MIA (update: coming November 1st)

Posted in: hands-on, Ifa2011, intel, minipost, pre-order, samsung, slate, SSD, tablet, Today's Chili

If you like making purchases without any sense of when your products will arrive, allow us to brighten your day. The Microsoft Store just started taking pre-orders for the Samsung Series 7 Slate — you remember, the Windows 7 machine sporting Intel’s 1.6GHz Core i5 2467M CPU with integrated graphics and 4GB of RAM, all beneath a 11.6-inch capacitive panel? Sure, you remember. MS is selling it for $1,299 with a 128GB SSD. And the mystery of wondering when it’ll actually ship? That they’ll throw in for free.

[Thanks, pradeep]

Update: Pre-orders now show a ship date of November 1st. Mystery dispelled. Thanks, Fahd.

Samsung Series 7 Slate now up for pre-orders, shipping date still MIA (update: coming November 1st) originally appeared on Engadget on Fri, 07 Oct 2011 01:04:00 EDT. Please see our terms for use of feeds.

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Oct 04

Open your IOPS to ioDrive’s next-gen SSDs

Posted in: enterprise, flash, SSD, Today's Chili

We’re ripe for an ioRefresh and thankfully here it is: the ioDrive2 and ioDrive2 Duo will be out from November, bringing hugely faster speeds at a much lower dollar-per-gig compared to their predecessors. The single-level cell version of the next-gen Duo (depicted above) will deliver 700,000 read IOPS, 900,000 write IOPS and a 3GB/s bandwidth that could possibly surpass OCZ’s Z-Drive R4. Prices start at $6,000 and top out at something too ridiculous to mention for a maximum 2.4TB of storage. But you’re an enterprise, remember, so at least try to haggle before you settle for a cheaper alternative. Full PR after the break.

Continue reading Open your IOPS to ioDrive’s next-gen SSDs

Open your IOPS to ioDrive’s next-gen SSDs originally appeared on Engadget on Tue, 04 Oct 2011 11:08:00 EDT. Please see our terms for use of feeds.

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Sep 28

OWC updates its Mercury Extreme Pro 3G SSD lineup, offers 30GBs for just $68

Posted in: mac os x, MacOsX, minipost, solid state drive, SolidStateDrive, SSD, Today's Chili, Windows
Say hello to Other World Computing’s latest 2.5-inch SSD, the 30GB variant of its Mercury Extreme Pro 3G series (3Gb/s, of course). This SandForce-driven SSD may not have loads of storage, but priced at a wallet-friendly 68 bucks, it’s certainly tempting if your optical drive’s been gathering dust. Whether you’re running an ungodly amount of Firefox tabs on a Mac or Windows machine, you’ll be covered with “sustained data rates of over 275MB/s,” keeping your tasks speedy. Ready to ditch the beach balls and hourglasses? It’s available now from OWC and you’ll find more info in the PR past the break.

Continue reading OWC updates its Mercury Extreme Pro 3G SSD lineup, offers 30GBs for just $68

OWC updates its Mercury Extreme Pro 3G SSD lineup, offers 30GBs for just $68 originally appeared on Engadget on Thu, 29 Sep 2011 01:06:00 EDT. Please see our terms for use of feeds.

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Sep 23

Angelbird’s Wings PCIe-based SSD preview and benchmarks

Posted in: benchmark, europe, hard drive, HardDrive, impressions, preview, solid state drive, SolidStateDrive, SSD, storage, Today's Chili

Storage enthusiasts (yeah, there is such a thing — what of it?) would probably tell you that PCIe-based SSDs are a dime a dozen these days. But in all seriousness, the prices we’re seeing are proof that a few more competitors wouldn’t hurt. A few weeks back, Austria’s own Angelbird started to ship a solution that we first heard about during 2010, and we were fortunate enough to pop a Wings PCIe SSD RAID card into our Mac Pro for testing. For years, we’ve been booting this up and running every single application off of its stock HDD — a 640GB Hitachi HDE721064SLA360 (7200RPM) — as we surmise many of you desktop owners might be. Anxious to see if these are the Wings your existing tower needs to soar? Head on past the break for our impressions.

Gallery: Angelbird’s Wings PCIe-based SSD

Continue reading Angelbird’s Wings PCIe-based SSD preview and benchmarks

Angelbird’s Wings PCIe-based SSD preview and benchmarks originally appeared on Engadget on Fri, 23 Sep 2011 15:00:00 EDT. Please see our terms for use of feeds.

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