Sandisk released word today of its return to consumer SSD sales with their new Ultra SSD available in capacities of 60, 120 and 240GB priced at $129, $219, and $449 respectively. A quick look at the capacities alone tells us that the controller can only be of SandForce design and the speeds of 280MB/s read and 270MB/s write all but …

Generally for the average consumer, specific brands are chosen over others; whether it may be due to customer satisfaction, personal experience, external influence, etc. Do you prefer Coke or Pepsi? Canon or Nikon? Cooler Master or Thermaltake? The list goes on. Whatever the reason may be, the fact remains that we tend to enjoy the company of products from manufacturer …

Today the particular card we’re looking at is the ASUS HD 6970 DirectCU II one.  I’ve quickly become a fan of the DirectCU II cooler for the simple fact it’s proven to do an extremely good job when it comes to giving us low temperatures at low noise levels. The biggest gripe people have with the model is that it’s …

Smallest and Fastest SSD To Date This SSD Review is going to closely evaluate the renice X3 120GB SATA 3 mSATA SSD.  It will be a great comparison with our similar reviews of the Samsung PM800 and Intel 310 just a few months ago. Because of their tiny form factor, mSATA SSDs are starting to appear as the only storage …

We have to apologize up front because our Test Bench is going through a bit of a transition but we thought it beneficial to throw in a picture in any case. A simple click will enlarge it to assist. Our main goal in testing is to ensure that all test results are as accurate as they can be and no …

ANVIL STORAGE UTILITIES PROFESSIONAL (BETA) Over the last few SSD reviews, we have been introducing our readers to a new benchmark program called Anvil Storage Utilities which is an absolutely amazing program when it comes to benchmarking solid state drives.  Not only does it have a preset SSD benchmark, but also, it has included such things as endurance testing and …

Lets take a look now at our SATA 2 SSD hierarchy as determined by PCMark Vantage HDD Total Points.  Only 3 mSATA SSDs have been tested and all are highlighted: mSATAS FUTURE Although the mSATA SSD is still the new kid on the block, its size alone brings forward a whole new outlook with respect to portable computing.  The Samsung …

The storage industry is shifting from 3Gb/s devices to the new 6Gb/s specification which has been a boon to manufacturers as new devices are needed to handle the new, faster devices that 6Gb/s enables. The 3Gb/s specification reigned  for roughly five years which allowed user speeds up to 300 MB/s. With the advent of “disruptive” technologies like SSD devices, the …

A look inside the exterior casing of the OWC Electra was a bit unexpected as many believe that asynchronous NAND flash memory is new to the SSD scene.  I knew I recognized this specific ‘strain’ of memory but couldn’t recall it being in any recent SSDs which eventually led to my giving in to a Google search.  Back in late …

ATTO DISK BENCHMARK VER. 2.46 ATTO Disk Benchmark is perhaps one of the oldest benchmarks going and is definitely the main staple for manufacturer performance specifications. ATTO uses RAW or compressible data and, for our benchmarks, we use a set length of 256mb and test both the read and write performance of various transfer sizes ranging from 0.5 to 8192kb.  …