Recent Posts

Samsung 470 Series SSD Review Revisited & RAID Tested!

A short time ago, The SSD Review published a review of the Samsung 256GB 470 Series SSD after discovering what an excellent entry this was into the consumer SSD market with availability in many online retail outlets. We were initially a bit hesitant and confused because the SSD appeared to be one of the top drives available yet information and …

Read More »

RAID0 & the SSD – Simple To Build and Lightning Fast

blank

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 …

Read More »

RAID0 & The SSD – TRIM And Building RAID0

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 …

Read More »

RAID0 & the SSD – Optimization and RealSSDx4

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 …

Read More »

RAID0 & The SSD – Benchmarking in RealSSDx2

Crucial C300 256GB RealSSDx2 in RAID0 (16K Stripe) . . . . . . . . . . . . . We left the two true Crucial RAID tests until last to show how great these Crucial drives really are.  Installation for these 256GB drives took 9 minutes and 10 seconds and the boot time is simply amazing at just …

Read More »

RAID0 & The SSD – Conclusions and Intel RST Ver 10 Released

CONCLUSIONS EASE OF INSTALLATION AND PERFORMANCE The two things that can truly be said about experimenting with RAID0 this past weekend are that it is quick and easy and the performance boost that you see in the typical desktop is absolutely amazing. The only reason that we spent so many hours experimenting was to fine tune and show you how …

Read More »

Zotac GeForce GTX 580 Graphics Card Review @ eTeknix.com

blank

In an attempt to tame the cards temperature from the 480’s design, Nvidia have lost the heatpipe design that was in hindsight not fully up to the job and replaced this with a new vapour chamber designed heatsink. This along with a redesigned fan that is now around 5dB quieter, and that has also a quieter pitch than the squeaky …

Read More »

Emergency 2012 Review (PC) @ KitGuru

blank

Emergency 2012 is quickly turning into a cult classic, escaping the attention of the mainstream gaming audience. The real time strategy simulator puts you in control of the emergency services as you try to save people from a plethora of of natural disasters, tragic accidents and terrorist threats. Full Review @ KitGuru.

Read More »

MSI Wind Top AE2400 Review @ KitGuru

blank

The iMac has been selling well for Apple for many years and PC centric manufacturers are beginning to realise that there is a viable market for an attractive, capable All In One unit. Today we are looking at the MSI Wind Top AE2400 desktop system which features an Intel processor and AMD discrete graphics paired up with a high quality …

Read More »

SandForce Wins Prestigious 2010 Start-Up to Watch Semiconductor Company Award

Global Semiconductor Alliance crowns SandForce as the start-up company with the most impact on the industry SARATOGA, Calif.–(BUSINESS WIRE)–SandForce, Inc., the pioneer of SSD (Solid State Drive) Processors that enable standard NAND Flash deployment in enterprise, client, and industrial computing applications, was crowned the prestigious Start-Up to Watch award at the annual Global Semiconductor Alliance (GSA) Awards Dinner Celebration held …

Read More »

Synology DiskStation DS211+ Review @ KitGuru

blank

Synology have been riding high in 2010, releasing some of the finest NAS systems ever to hit the consumer market. We use several of these devices in the KitGuru offices for our network file sharing and have found them to be both extremely reliable and fast. Last month we looked at the Synology DS211, a fantastic performing mainstream unit which …

Read More »

Thermaltake Armor A60 Mid-Tower Case @ Big Bruin

blank

If you have never heard of Thermaltake, it’s time to come out of the cave and discover a company that consistently pushes the boundaries of computer components. Since 1999, Thermaltake has been an innovative leader when it comes to items such as cases, power supplies, coolers and other equipment. The A60 is one of Thermaltake’s mid-tower Armor series cases, and there …

Read More »

PowerColor Radeon HD 6970 Video Card Review @Benchmark Reviews

Featuring a 1536-Core Cayman GPU, AMD’s Radeon HD 6970 competes against NVIDIA’s GeForce GTX 470. With the introduction of AMD’s Cayman GPU, the Radeon HD 6870 video card becomes their flagship DirectX-11 desktop graphics product. Aside from the dual-GPU Radeon HD 5970, gamers can expect the new Radeon HD 6970 to quench their thirst for demanding graphics power. The Cayman …

Read More »

Powercolor HD6970 Graphics Card Review@KitGuru

blank

Long known for its value products, Powercolor has been one of AMDs longest serving and most loyal partners. Over the past 12 months, they have also invested heavily in product design “ especially coolers. Today we continue our coverage of AMDs Radeon HD 6900 series launch,  looking next at the PowerColor HD6970 graphics card. Lets put this card under the …

Read More »

AMD Catalyst Software Update Preview @ eTeknix.com

No matter what operating system you use these days you will find that you need drivers, and with more complex hardware you will find that the more complex driver you need to run it. Taking a simple device like a webcam for instance that requires drivers; but most of the settings are down to the application itself. Graphics cards however, …

Read More »