When SSDs were first introduced to the consumer way back in 07/08, many companies understood the value of what could be brought to the table and jumped aboard the new SSD train. SanDisk was the first to appear, followed by Samsung and Intel, all being NAND flash memory manufacturers. Several third-party companies were quick to join in through contracts with …
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What is an SSD – Learning To Run With Flash
Have you ever wondered how a smart phone, IPOD or even an IPAD can work at such speed and instant access, yet your computer takes over a minute to start? That question just might be the reason that you have joined us in our series ‘Learning To Run With Flash’ and, if so, congratulations! You are about to enter a …
Read More »Slow SSD Transition and The Consumer Mindset – Learning to Run With Flash
Last week I posted the comment on a social site that stated, “If you are a friend of mine and still use a hard drive, I am embarrassed for you”. This drew criticism that I truly never expected, much from friends who responded through private thoughts back to me, some that I would never print. I was definitely taken aback …
Read More »Crucial M550 SSD Review (1TB) – Increased Speed, Capacity and Value
It’s been some time since Crucial introduced the M500 Series SSD and, as it was when first released, the M500 remains to be a top value premium SSD offering. At $439 for a 960GB M500, this translates to .43/GB which is still lower than some premium SSDs of half that capacity. Not so much a difficulty with respect their target …
Read More »Understanding The PCI Express Interface and Its Benefit to Solid State Storage – LSI’S Kent Smith and Jeremy Werner
The following article is a reprint of a recent post at the LSI Blog that we felt would be of great benefit to our readers. Our thanks to LSI, Kent Smith and Jeremy Werner for their work and the opportunity to report information that we feel might be a great reading opportunity for our readers. Please check out the LSI …
Read More »OWC Mercury Accelsior_E2 PCIe SSD Wicked Media Transfer Times and Price Drop
Of all the e-mail we receive, perhaps the most surprising are the number that are dedicated specifically to PCIe SSD Cards. Which has the most capacity? Will this work for such and such? Would you trust this for the long-term? What is the best bang for the buck? Questions with respect to PCIe SSDs continue to hit our inbox daily, …
Read More »ASRock Z87 Extreme11/ac Mobo Reaches 6 GB/s & 850K IOPS
Our report today will demonstrate single and RAID tests when we combine the newest ASRock Z87 Extreme11/ac motherboard with eight HGST SSD800MM SAS 12Gbps 400GB enterprise SSDs. Our charts will display how the HGST SSD800MM scales as it is tested on its own, as well as in RAID 0 at X2, X4 and X8 combinations. We can validate right off …
Read More »Plextor M6e PCIe M.2 SSD Review – RAID Tested at 1.4GB/s
Some time ago, we conducted a review of a new PCIe Card called the IOSwitch Raijin and it was constructed of a M.2 to PCIe x4 adapter, along with the Plextor M6e native PCIe M.2 (NGFF) 256GB SSD. At the time, the M6e was an unreleased SSD and it seemed that even Plextor was caught off guard at the publicity …
Read More »Intel SSD 730 Series SSD Review (2x480GB)
Yesterday, we posted a report that seems to have drawn amazing attention, one that spoke to Intel’s final acknowledgement that their 3rd Generation controller was manufactured by none other than LSI. That really isn’t that big of a news scoop unless you are an SSD geek. It does tell us a great deal about the Intel 730 Series SSD we …
Read More »Intel’s 3rd Generation SSD Controller Manufactured By LSI
The Intel 3rd Generation SSD controller was first seen in our review of the DC S3700 SSD in late 2012, and followed by our later review of the DC S3500 in May of 2013, both SSDs being enterprise variant drives targeted for the data center. The controller is an 8 channel 6Gbps controller and has enjoyed a great deal of …
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