Tag Archives: Crystal DiskMark

Without a doubt this is the year of portable storage.  Through advances in NAND flash memory, we have seen the footprint of all storage devices shrink considerably, and if they haven’t, their capacity has increased significantly.  Take a look at Samsung’s latest 960 Pro M.2 2TB SSD we recently reviewed for example.  This little baby can store 34,000 hrs of …

If you are like I, you work in an environment where you may be provided an encrypted laptop in which you have no administrative permissions.  My work laptop requires a hardware encryption password followed by a secure OS password and recognition of the inserted security card.  If you want to utilize all but very few secure USB flash drives, an …

Today we are going to look into the performance of yet another entry level SSD. This trend, to offer entry level products, is very strong now and since TLC NAND is readily available, almost every manufacturer out has one of these cost effect drives in their portfolio. While these SSDs aren’t the top performing devices enthusiasts love, they offer significantly better …

Back in 2014 we took a good look at the Mushkin Reactor. At the time, it was the best value 1TB SSD you could buy. You could even argue that it was THE SSD which made high value, high capacity SSDs the norm. Now, Mushkin is trying to take value a step farther by introducing a cheaper alternative into the market. Instead of …

Listing any product as the worlds best is just asking for trouble.  I did just that a few years back when I made the switch from PC to the Apple MacBook Air. The MBA achieved those accolades thanks to Samsung who supplied Apple with their PCIe SSD, even before equipping their own ultrabooks.  The industry has since forgotten to educate …

In the past few days at Comptex 2016 in Taipei, Taiwan, we have seen that both Plextor and ADATA have implemented the newest Marvell NVMe Controller and it seems to be the front runner when considering the alternative choices from both MSI and Phison. With a codename of ‘Eldora’ this controller has the product number of 88SS1093 and, at least …

This morning at Computex 2016 in Taipei, Plextor announced its newest M8 M.2 Series of NVMe SSDs, these relying on performance through Marvell’s newest 88SS1093 controller.  The M8 M.2 SSD will be available with or without heatsink, or in a HHHL PCIe form factor that ensures compatibility for those without M.2 slot equipped PC systems.  This first photo displays the …

We’ve been able to test our fair share of SSDs over the years and, to this date, there remains a constant.  Prices drop.  Where we once saw a 32GB SSD peak at $5000 in 2007, today’s world is vastly different and 1TB SSDs are now available at just over the $300 mark.   Value is key in technology and has always …

The ability to upgrade storage in today’s smartphones seems to have become key once again. It is the dividing point between Samsung and Apple.  A Samsung S7 smart phone allows the user to add up to 200GB of storage space whereas the Apple iPhone 6S tops out at 128GB, that storage increasing the iPhone price by several hundred dollars. This …

Out with the old, in with the new is how the saying goes! Although, in this case, the old really isn’t that old and is still quite bleeding edge technology. This doesn’t stop Samsung though. Today we are going to take a look at the performance of Samsung’s 3rd generation 48-layer 256Gb TLC V-NAND. That is right, Samsung has now …