CrunchGear » SSD

OCZ Colossus finally hits retailers

Dave Freeman — Thu, 19 Nov 2009 01:00:26 +0000

Get your wallet ready; OCZ’s Colossus line has finally hit the shelves. We were expecting them back in August, but it seems that there must have been some difficulties.

Available in 120GB, 250GB, and 500GB and 1TB capacities, the Colossus marks the first time that SSD drives have reached the storage sizes that users have come to expect these days. The bad news is you can expect to spend a small fortune for these drives. The 1TB sells for $3397, the 500GB for $1530, the 250GB is $820, and the 120GB will set you back $438. Ouch!

Toshiba announces two new mini SSDs weighing just 9 grams

Serkan Toto — Tue, 22 Sep 2009 07:20:27 +0000

Toshiba today announced it has developed mini SSDs (pictured on the right hand side) that are just a seventh of the size of existing 2.5-inch drives. The Toshiba drives will features a mini-SATA (aka mSATA) interface connector, as specified by the Serial ATA International Organization (SATA-IO) just yesterday. The new specification is designed for notebooks and similar portable devices.

Toshiba initially plans to roll out two models, an SSD with 30GB and another with 62GB on board. Sized at just 30×4.75mmx50.95mm, these drives weigh 9g. They will features 70MB/s writing speed and 180MB/s reading speed.

Toshiba says mass production of both models will begin as early as next month. The 62GB drive will cost $220, while the 30GB version will be priced at $110 (these are sample prices). Both SSDs will be entirely “made in Japan”.

Kingston starts shipping SSDNow V+

Peter Ha — Mon, 10 Aug 2009 18:00:14 +0000

Boasting blistering read and write IOPS speeds, Kingston has just announced that the latest SSDNow drives, V+, are now shipping. Ranging from 64GB up to 256GB, the V+ drives have claimed read and writes speeds of 220MB/s and 180MB/s, respectively. The 2.5-inch drives are priced as follows for the 64GB, 128GB and 256GB models: $254, $500 and $992. Yikes.

Kingston SSDNow V+ Features and Specifications:

Sequential Read Throughput*: 64GB, 128GB & 256GB – 220MB/sec.
Sequential Write Throughput*:

64GB – 140MB/sec.
128GB – 170MB/sec.
256GB – 180MB/sec.

IOPS (Input and Output Operations per Second)*:

Random 4K read – 6,300 IOPS
Random 4K write: 64GB – 84 IOPS
Random 4K write: 128GB – 158 IOPS
Random 4K write: 256GB – 291 IOPS

Form Factor: 2.5″
Interface: SATA 1.5Gb/sec. and 3.0Gb/sec.
Capacity**: 64GB, 128GB, 256GB
Supports S.M.A.R.T.: Self-Monitoring, Analysis and Reporting Technology
Storage temperatures: -40 C to 85 C
Operating temperatures: 0 C to 70 C
Dimensions: 69.85mm x 100mm x 9.5mm
Weight: 84 grams
Vibration operating: 2.7G
Vibration non-operating: 20G
Power specs: Active: 2.6W; Idle: 0.15W
Life expectancy: 1 million hours MTBF
Operating Shock: 1500G
Guaranteed: backed by a three-year Kingston warranty, 24/7 tech support

Kingston

OCZ’s 1TB SSD Colossus due out this month for ~$2500

Peter Ha — Mon, 03 Aug 2009 23:00:36 +0000

Introduced at Computex in June, the aptly named Colossus 1TB SSD from OCZ is expected to hit store shelves later this month, says Gizmag. The 14.1-ounce 3.5-inch drive claims to have a read speed of 250MB/s and write speeds up to 220MB/s via SATA2. The RAID 0 compliant drive will supposedly hit store shelves later this month for ~$2500.

via Gizmag

OCZ Colossus puts several SSD peas in one 3.5″ pod

Devin Coldewey — Sat, 25 Jul 2009 02:00:48 +0000

This is something we’ve seen in super-high-end storage systems, but is now being implemented on a enthusiast consumer level. The OCZ Colossus, within its featureless 3.5″ enclosure, sports two RAIDed SSD drives mounted to a single PCB. You can bet it’s going to be fast, though the RAID controller is apparently rated to “only” 260MB/s. With two drives (or four in the Colossus 4X), you’d think they’d easily hit that, but you’d also be right to expect more from a configuration like this.

Price is $299 for 128GB, so it’s still quite a luxury item, but the multiple-non-high-end-drives-in-RAID approach seems to be gaining traction. Of course, for that price, you can get a regular high-end SSD, but if you want to maintain that 260MB/s all the way up to a a terabyte, the Colossus is probably your best bet (though it will be expensive as hell).

Lexar rolls out fastest Crucial SSDs to date, the M225

Peter Ha — Mon, 20 Jul 2009 15:09:58 +0000

SSDs are still mad expensive, but Lexar has just announced a wicked fast line of Crucial SSDs, M225. Available in 64GB, 128GB, and 256GB, the 2.5-inch drives boast 250MB/sec read speeds and 200MB/sec write speeds (256GB model). All three drives sport a SATA 2.0 interface and a five-year warranty. Snag one now for $170 (64GB), $330 (128GB) or $600 (256GB).

Crucial

Corsair announces new Extreme! SSD! Drives!

Dave Freeman — Fri, 17 Jul 2009 01:40:59 +0000

For high performance drives, SSD seems to be where it’s at these days. Corsair is at the forefront of the market, and just announced three new drives that definitely bring speed to the party. Now if they could only increase the capacity without being Extreme!ly expensive.

So three new drives, in 32 GB, 64 GB and 128 GB. But the real news in the speed. The real news though is the speed. They all have a 230 mb/sec read and 170 mb/sec write rate. That’s the kind of speed that used to be limited to arrays — these should be perfect for HD video editing tasks. Of course, no word on pricing yet, but you can pretty much bet it won’t be cheap.

From the press release:

Fremont, CA. July 16th, 2009.- Corsair®, a worldwide leader in high-performance computer memory, power supplies and flash memory products, including solid-state drives, today announced the Extreme Series X32, X64 and X128 high-performance SSDs, in 32GB, 64GB and 128GB densities respectively.

Built using the renowned Indilinx Barefoot controller and Samsung MLC NAND flash memory, the Extreme Series has been designed to offer the highest performance currently available on the market, with read speeds of up to 240MB/s and write speeds of up to 170MB/s.

“The combination of the Indilinx Barefoot controller, Samsung flash memory, and 64MB of on-board cache delivers blistering, stutter-free performance, eliminating the bottleneck imposed by traditional mechanical hard disks,” said Jim Carlton, VP of Marketing at Corsair. “The new Extreme Series SSDs are ideal for use as primary drives in desktop and notebooks systems, and also for RAID 0 configurations in high-performance desktops for enthusiasts who want extreme performance.”

All Extreme Series SSDs feature end-user upgradable firmware to allow for new features to be added, such as the upcoming TRIM command for Windows 7 and other operating systems, which maintains optimal performance over time. Firmware upgrades and support for the Extreme Series SSDs will be available via Corsair’s website, and drives can be updated without the need to wipe data from the SSD, ensuring seamless upgrades.

The Corsair Extreme Series X32, X64 and X128 solid-state drives are available immediately from Corsair’s authorized distributors and resellers worldwide, and are backed by a Two-Year Limited Warranty. Complete customer support via telephone, email, forum and Tech Support Express is also available.

For more information on Corsair solid-state drives, please visit the Corsair SSD product page

Super Talent’s MasterDrive SX SSDs would go great with an old MacBook Pro

Nicholas Deleon — Thu, 18 Jun 2009 19:40:40 +0000

Do you have a MacBook Pro? No, the new one with the gimped SATA transfer, but the one before it. Good, because Super Talent, which just won the prize for least presumptive company name, has a new line of solid state drives, dubbed the MasterDrive SX series, that may interest you guys. Write speeds are rated at up to 200MB/s sequential, not burst. Yes, that’s pretty fast.

The new drives range in size from 64GB to 256GB. And since we’re talking SSD here, expect to pay a small fortune. The mid-range 128GB model, which is rated at 220MB/s read and 200 MB/s write, comes in at $359. Prices for the other two? ::shoulder shrug::

If you have the cash, they’re on Newegg. (Well, only the 128GB one is; presumably the other ones will pop up soon.)

Toshiba to roll out world’s first notebook with 512GB SSD

Serkan Toto — Thu, 14 May 2009 08:39:41 +0000

SSDs are picking up steam in the computer market (although there were some bad news), and so it comes as no surprise that today Toshiba announced the world’s first laptop featuring their self-developed 512GB SSD [JP]. The Dynabook SS RX2/WAJ went on sale in Japan today already and costs $4,000.

Spec-wise, buyers get a Core 2 Duo SU9400 CPU (1.40GHz), 3GB of RAM, a DVD super multi drive, a 12.1-inch WXGA LCD screen, Bluetooth 2.1+EDR, WiFi IEEE 802.11a/b/g/n, Gigabit Ethernet and 12 hours of battery life.

The SSD (which costs $1,500 by itself and is pictured above) features 230MB/s reading speed and 180MB/s writing speed. Toshiba says this is 2.5 to 3 times better than a comparable HDD.

The Dynabook weighs just 1095g and is sized at 283×215.8×19.5〜25.5mm. Toshiba is yet to speak about their plans to export the notebook to overseas markets.

Corsair releases 256GB Solid State Drive

John Biggs — Tue, 12 May 2009 12:56:49 +0000

Whoa heavy and a bottle of bread! Corsair just released a 256GB SSD SATA II 3.0Gbps drive for $660 *head spins like wolf in cartoons that has just been clobbered by a mallet*.

That’s right. This bugger is $658.22 at NCIX and is in stock. For something a little more sane you can rock their 128GB drive for $299 but who wants to go all chintzy when we’re talking a lump of storage so dense that matter falls into it when you pass by.

Advanced Controller and Drive Technologies Deliver  Industry-Leading Performance and Compatibility

Fremont, CA, May 11th, 2009 – Corsair® www.corsair.com, a worldwide leader in high-performance computer and flash memory products, today announced the launch of the Corsair Storage Solutions P256 high-performance 256GB solid-state drive (SSD).
The Corsair Storage Solutions P256 has been designed using cutting-edge technology to deliver the highest performance and compatibility, in a capacity that is big enough to replace conventional storage solutions in a high-performance PC. The P256 uses specially selected Samsung MLC flash memory and a sophisticated Samsung Controller IC, coupled with 128MB of super-fast cache memory and Native Command Queuing (NCQ) support for blistering, stutter-free performance, delivering read speeds of up to 220MB/sec and write speeds of up to 200MB/sec.
“The Corsair Storage Solutions P256 delivers the best computing experience of any single storage drive available today,” said John Beekley, VP of Applications Engineering at Corsair, “Using the P256 results in immediate and dramatic improvements in system startup and shutdown, game level loading, application startup, and many other everyday tasks. Additionally, the P256 is more durable and reliable than hard disk drives, and has been shown in the Corsair Labs to provide up to 25% longer battery life in portable computers.”
The large, 256GB capacity provides ample space for the most advanced operating systems, multiple applications, and large music, photo and video collections. The Corsair Storage Solutions P256 is one of the most compatible solid-state drives available today due to the extensive validation of the Samsung controller and flash memory technology in multiple OEM systems.
The Corsair Storage Solutions P256 SSD is available immediately from Corsair’s authorized distributors and resellers worldwide, and is backed by a Two Year Limited Warranty. Complete customer support via telephone, email, forum and Tech Support Express is also available. For more information on Corsair SSD drives, please visit www.corsair.com

Warning: Your SSD will slow down like a 3.5-inch floppy

John Biggs — Sat, 09 May 2009 18:19:39 +0000

Did you know that solid state drives could suffer from fragmentation and slowdowns? SSDs are basically huge chunks of ultrafast flash memory designed for massive data storage. There are no moving parts but as you read and write to the disks, the quality and speed degrades over time.

Because they’re fairly new, not much is known about how they will react to prolonged use. While SSD OEMs tout the speed and convenience, there is little proof that that speed will remain constant.

The good news is that after an initial dip in performance, SSDs tend to level off, according to Eden Kim, chairman of the Solid State Storage Initative’s Consumer SSD Market Development Task Force. Even if they do drop in performance over time — undercutting a manufacturer’s claims — consumer flash drives are still vastly faster than traditional hard drives, because they can perform two to five times the input/ouput operations (I/Os) per second of a hard drive, he said.

Is it a big deal? Probably not. A second or two here or there won’t kill your Quake session. However, for heavy duty servers SSDs might be a bit of a risk.

Western Digital acquires SiliconSystems, finally enters SSD territory

Peter Ha — Mon, 30 Mar 2009 15:40:09 +0000

It was only a matter of time before Western Digital dipped their manicured toes into the SSD pool. And today WD announced their cash buyout of SiliconSystems out of Aliso Veijo, CA. The $65 million cash acquisition has been around since 2002 and has a full range of storage solutions, but going forward they’ll be known as the WD Solid-State Storage business unit. It’s about time WD got into the SSD market and that’s all I have to say.

ioDrive Duo – the fastest SSD setup currently available

Dave Freeman — Thu, 12 Mar 2009 06:14:31 +0000

Fusion-io announced today the ioDrive Duo, which is currently being touted as the fastest SSD solution available. The drive is available in capacities of up to 640GB, with a transfer rate of 1.5 gigabytes per second. Intended more for the enterprise and server market, the ioDrive is designed to be used in a RAID-1 setup for optimal performance. This is why the design allows for two separate ‘drives’ to be mounted on one PCIe card.

In fact, you can use a RAID-1 setup off a single PCIe card, between two memory modules. Scheduled to be available this April, we don’t have any pricing as of yet, but I think it’s pretty safe to assume it won’t be cheap.

From the press release:

SALT LAKE CITY – March 11, 2009 – Fusion-io, the leader in solid-state architecture and high-performance I/O solutions, today announced the ioDrive Duo, which doubles the slot capacity of Fusion-io’s successful PCI Express-based ioDrive storage solution. The new ioDrive Duo is the market’s fastest and most innovative server-based solid-state storage solution.

With the ioDrive Duo, it is now possible for application, database and system administrators to get previously unheard-of levels of performance, protection and capacity utilization from a single server. Performance for multiple ioDrive Duos scales linearly, allowing any enterprise to scale performance to six gigabytes per-second (Gbytes/sec) of read bandwidth and over 500,000 read IOPS by using just four ioDrive Duos.

“Many database and system administrators are finding that SANs are too expensive and don’t meet performance, protection and capacity utilization expectations,” said David Flynn, CTO of Fusion-io. “This is why more and more application vendors are moving toward application-centric solid-state storage. The ioDrive Duo offers the enterprise the advantages of application-centric storage without application-specific programming.”

ioDrive Duo Product Details

The following specifications describe the physical and performance characteristics of the ioDrive Duo.

PERFORMANCE
Based on PCI Express x8 or PCI Express 2.0 x4 standards, which can sustain up to 20 gigabits per-second (Gbytes/sec) of raw throughput, the ioDrive Duo has more than enough bandwidth to obtain industry-leading performance from a single card. The ioDrive Duo can easily sustain 1.5 Gbytes/sec of read bandwidth and nearly 200,000 read IOPS. Its performance metrics are as follows:

• Sustained read bandwidth: 1500 MB/sec (32k packet size)
• Sustained write bandwidth: 1400 MB/sec (32k packet size)
• Read IOPS: 186,000 (4k packet size)
• Write IOPS: 167,000 (4k packet size)
• Latency < 50 µsec

RELIABILITY
The ioDrive Duo offers unmatched solid-state protection for data integrity and reliability with triple redundancy for a single storage component.

• Multi-bit error detection and correction
• Patent-pending Flashback protection, offering chip-level N+1 redundancy and on-board self-healing so that no servicing is required
• Optional RAID-1 mirroring between two ioMemory modules on the same ioDrive Duo, offering complete redundancy on a single PCIe card

CAPACITY
The ioDrive Duo comes in the following capacities:

• 160 Gbytes
• 320 Gbytes
• 640 Gbytes
• 1.28 TB (second half of 2009)

The ioDrive Duo will be available in April 2009. To find out more about how this and Fusion-io’s other enterprise solid-state storage products can benefit your organization, please visit www.fusionio.com.

New SSDs by Intel from Kingston

Arun Venkatesan — Wed, 21 Jan 2009 00:20:13 +0000

So they’re not really new. Just Intel SSDs with a Kingston SSDNow on them. Kingston hopes that speed and reliability from Intel products coupled with Kingston distribution and a 3-year warranty with 24/7 support will be a good combination. It looks like it very well could. They come in two flavors, an 32GB E series aimed at server environments, and a 80GB M series for power users.

I’m not going to list out all the nitty gritty details, you can just check out the Kingston site for those. I will tell you a few things. They are both 2.5-inch drives utilizing the SATA 3.0Gb/sec interface. The E series boasts high life expectancy and low power consumption while the M series features higher IOPS (input output operations per second) And they feature S.M.A.R.T (Self-Monitoring, Analysis and Reporting Technology) a technology that will apparently inform you right before the drive dies. These babies aren’t cheap though. They’ll cost around $700-900 each. Ouch.

New Samsung Enterprise SSD

Arun Venkatesan — Tue, 06 Jan 2009 23:30:13 +0000

Samsung has unleashed a new type of solid state drive today. It is a 100GB SSD targeted at server applications where 15K RPM HDDs are traditionally used.

The drive boasts IPOS (input/output per second) processing ten times faster than 15K RPM HDDs, a random read speed of 25K, random write speed of 6K, and processes 100 times the IPOS per watt as a 15K RPM drive. This drive comes in a standard 2.50inch single-level cell form factor and will be available this quarter.

Here is the full release:

Samsung Introducing High-speed, High-capacity
“Green” SSD for Enterprise Market

Las Vegas, NV – Jan. 6, 2009: Samsung Electronics Co., Ltd., the world leader in advanced semiconductor technology, announced today at the Storage Visions 2009 Conference here that it has developed a 100 gigabyte (GB) solid state drive for use in servers for applications such as video on demand, streaming media content delivery, internet data centers, virtualization and on-line transaction processing.

As an alternative to traditional 15K rpm hard disk drives (HDDs), the new performance-optimized 100GB Enterprise SSD can process IOPS (input/output per second) more than 10 times faster than the fastest 15K rpm SAS HDD available for transactional data workloads, with a random read speed of 25K and a random write speed of 6K. The new drive can process as much as 100 times the number of IOPS per watt as a 15K rpm 2.5-inch SAS HDD in applications where higher performance and lower power consumption are both needed.

“We have created a very reliable drive for data centers with high-performance, high-endurance and sharply reduced power consumption requirements, plus tremendous long-term value when the total cost of ownership is analyzed,” said Jim Elliott, vice president, memory marketing, Samsung Semiconductor, Inc. “Our new enterprise SSD offers CIOs and IT managers the ability to greatly improve storage reliability and capacity while avoiding costly power and AC infrastructure upgrades in data centers at or near capacity,” he added.

Designed to remove the system performance bottleneck in enterprise storage applications, the high-performance 2.5-inch enterprise drive reads data sequentially at 230 megabytes per second (MB/s) and writes sequentially at 180 MB/s.

The 100GB SSD’s advanced performance is attributed to a sophisticated 8-channel controller, improved NAND flash and special drive firmware, all developed by Samsung. A single Samsung 100GB SSD can replace multiple hard drives in high performance applications and comes complete with full data encryption.

The most environmentally friendly drive for data centers today, Samsung’s enterprise SSDs use 1.9 watts of power in active mode and 0.6 watts in idle mode, minimizing power and heat loads. These “green” ratings tower over typical 15K HDDs, which consume between 8 to 15 watts in active mode and 1 to 2 watts in idle mode. Servers with high-rpm hard-drive solutions lead to increased power bills and larger carbon footprints, while posing greater difficulties when expanding a data center.

The Samsung SS805 drive also features a key enterprise storage function that allows all data in the process of being stored within the SSD to be preserved in the event of a power outage.

The 2.5-inch single-level cell (SLC) 100GB SSD, which will be available this quarter, is standardized in height, width and thickness.

G-DRIVE external SSD for the mac addict

Ivan Beres — Tue, 06 Jan 2009 22:35:35 +0000

There’s SSD and there are external hard drives. Why not make an external SSD? So G-Technology released a set of external SSD today. Apparently these drives are for professionals who need fast and reliable storage that looks like a small communist era gas convector. Only they wont keep you warm and cost you a lot more money.

“Suggested retail pricing for the G-DRIVE mini SSD is $599 for 120GB and $1,299 for 250GB. The G-Technology G-RAID mini SSDs are $999 for 250GB and $2,199 for 500GB. All drives come with a standard three-year factory warranty.”

I wonder when will they put an ethernet port on these drives. I’d like that. Here are some specs for you, and a link for more information.

G-RAID mini SSD, contains two SSDs in RAID1/0 arrangement, 250GB combined max capacity

eSATA, FireWire 800, FireWire 400 and USB 2.0

G-RAID mini SSD, contains two SSDs in RAID1/0 arrangement, 500GB combined max capacity

eSATA, FireWire 800, FireWire 400 and USB 2.0

G-DRIVE mini SSD, contains one SSD, 120GB

FireWire 800, FireWire 400 and USB 2.0

G-DRIVE mini SSD, contains one SSD, 250GB

FireWire 800, FireWire 400 and USB 2.0

Low-cost SSDs now shipping from RunCore

Matt Burns — Wed, 31 Dec 2008 16:14:43 +0000

SSDs are slowing becoming available to geeks on a budget and the latest from RunCore carry attractive prices.

The little, 1.8-inch drives start out at $69.99 for the 16GB flavor but continue up through 32GB, 64GB, and 128GB sizes. ($119, $199, $389, respectively) These tiny SSDs are self-proclaimed, low cost solutions so don’t expect lighting read/write speeds out of ‘em. The 256GB Pro III Hyper Speed 2.5-inch SATA Drive however boosts 230MB/sec read and 150MB/sec write speeds though. That guy sports $699 price though which isn’t exactly a ‘budget’ price in my book.

Buffalo LinkStation 240GB SSD

Ivan Beres — Thu, 11 Dec 2008 08:46:57 +0000

It seems like the price/value ratio of the SSD drives is slowly improving. The Buffalo LS-WSS240GL/R1 costs about 1200$ and has an appealing 240GB of storage. It provides USB, RAID 0, 1 and DLMA/iTunes server capabilities while you can turn the whole thing off when you turn your computer off. Don’t get too excited although because the 240GB is actually two 120GB SSD’s next to each other.

In Hungary, after stealing some IBM tech there were companies selling “super computers”. These machines had two motherboards in them, basically two computers pushed in to one case. I didn’t know they still do that.

CrunchDeals: 32GB SSD for $29.99 after rebate

Doug Aamoth — Sat, 29 Nov 2008 20:33:10 +0000

Hey, look at this deal! You can see what all the SSD fuss is about for just thirty bucks after a $60 mail-in rebate.

Tiger Direct has the 32GB OCZ SATA II 2.5-inch solid state drive for $89.99 with a $60 mail-in rebate. The rebate deal is good until 11/30 – that’s tomorrow — so you’ll have to be relatively nimble if you want to see that $60 ever again.

The rebate applies to higher capacity OCZ SSDs as well, but it’s $60 across the board so the 32GB drive is the best deal.

OCZ Core Series 32GB SATA II 2.5" Solid State Drive [Tiger Direct via dealspl.us]

Ooh, a 256GB SSD from Micron is on the way

Nicholas Deleon — Tue, 25 Nov 2008 00:00:11 +0000

Another manufacturer has thrown its hat into the ever expanding, fantastically dull realm of solid state drive development. This time it’s Micron, which today announced that it plans to release a 256GB SSD early next year.

And just to keep things interesting, Micron claims, while puffing its chest out and standing on its tippy toes, that its 256GB SSD can read data at 250MBps, to Samsung’s measly 220 Mbps. (But Samsung’s can write faster, 200MBps to Micro’s 100 MBps.)

Can you imagine an iPhone, or other trendy consumer device, with 256GB of space to play around with. Think of all the Blu-ray rips you could fit on that.