Zalman's F1 Series SSDs Hit the Market (in Japan)

News
By Doug Crowthers
published

Zalman's newest line of solid state drives, the F1-series, is slated for launch tomorrow in Japan.

The F1 Series SSDs utilize a 2.5-inch form-factor SATA 6 Gb/s interface. The drive is based on the SandForce SF-2281 controller with multi-level cell (MLC) NAND flash memory. Its available in capacities of 60 GB, 120 GB and 240 GB. Pricing is listed at 11,980 JPY (US $153) for the 60 GB, 19,800 JPY ($254) for the 120 GB, and 39,980 JPY ($513) for the 240 GB model. In addition, the drive has support for TRIM, NCQ, AES-128/256, SMART and is AHCI mode optimized. 

The F1 Series performance offers read speeds of up to 560 MB/s, and up to 530 MB/s write speeds. The 60 GB and 120 GB models offer 4K random write performance of 30,000 IOPS and the 240 GB model offers 45,000 IOPS. Zalman has provided a speed comparison chart on the new F1 Series against "General" but isn't kind enough to list was the "General" drive is. Based on the number listed, "General" looks to be your standard SandForce SF-2281 controller. Zalman is boasting its performance seen in incompressible data transfers most commonly used by audio, video and photography professionals.

Read more on the F1 Series at its product page. We'll let you know if and when this drive will hit the U.S.

Doug Crowthers
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7 Comments Comment from the forums
  • theuniquegamer
    super fast ssds but little pricy than the other similar ssds.
    Reply
  • alidan
    retardedly high price for the performance to get.
    Reply
  • knowom
    Most people are more concerned about price to capacity with SSD's right now yay more generally unwarranted speed that most users outside of first booting their computers up won't notice other than high end gamers and things of that nature for better load times, but still leaps and bounds slower than a ramdisk or volume caching like supercache that even used on a meager USB thumb drive or SD flash could trounce these SSD's performance.
    Reply
  • thehelix
    knowomMost people are more concerned about price to capacity with SSD's right now yay more generally unwarranted speed that most users outside of first booting their computers up won't notice other than high end gamers and things of that nature for better load times, but still leaps and bounds slower than a ramdisk or volume caching like supercache that even used on a meager USB thumb drive or SD flash could trounce these SSD's performance.
    Full stops are your friends.
    Reply
  • alidan
    knowomMost people are more concerned about price to capacity with SSD's right now yay more generally unwarranted speed that most users outside of first booting their computers up won't notice other than high end gamers and things of that nature for better load times, but still leaps and bounds slower than a ramdisk or volume caching like supercache that even used on a meager USB thumb drive or SD flash could trounce these SSD's performance.
    capacity the cost, these things are over two dollars per gigabyte. Right now we have drives that are around $1.70 per gigabyte, new, that are as fast if not faster a 60,000 to 80,000 IOPS

    Just raw data alone these things are overpriced pieces of crap. Now if these were maybe $1.60 a GB maybe even a $1.50 a GB you could forgive the performance but not when you cost more than a higher performing drive that cost less.

    And let's be honest here, normal people would notice the difference to the hard drive and an SSD if given the chance to use both. I just moved over to an SSD for Christmas, world of difference. It's not just load times it's also the seek time and the fact that I demand a lot from my hard drive. Most normal people use computer would definitely notice the difference between a hard drive in an SSD probably more so than me, because they put her to sleep hibernate the damn thing or even shut down every day, whereas I just leave it running. I know this is snapping us almost every program I open that anyone would notice.

    That said I've always been a proponent of the boot drive if you ever have the opportunity to get one, offloading the system files onto a different drive regardless of its a SSD or even a hard drive would always increase performance on every other drive.
    Reply
  • ikyung
    You idiots do realize things costs more in Japan right? All they did was convert the price of yen to dollars. Doesn't mean the same SSD will cost that much in the U.S.

    For example, the Wi-Fi PSVita launched at almost 25,000 yen which converts to roughly 320.00. In the states, it is launching for 250.00. Not to take into factor Sony is a Japanese company. Meaning, the PSVita wasn't even some imported item for Japan.
    Reply
  • Guys, I have news for you, This drive is made in korea, and has been available here since November.
    And somebody sort the price out, it is available over here at $201 for the 120 version, i know, i have just bought 2 of them. will let you know how they perform after a while of playing with them
    Reply