Patrick Schmid and Achim Roos

Loaded with features and set up for maximum enterprise storage flexibility, we're looking into the performance and management capabilities of three SAS controller products by Adaptec, Areca, and Promise.

Today we're testing and dissecting Samsung’s Spinpoint F2, Seagate’s Barracuda 7200.12, and WD’s 2 TB Caviar Green. They all hold 500 GB of data per platter, but the similarities stop there. Which one works best for you?

A couple of weeks ago, we showed you how to best overclock your Phenom II to maximize performance and power consumption. This week, we run an Intel Core i7 920 at various clock speeds ranging up to 4 GHz with the same goal.

Using 2.5” hard drives in RAID arrays provides increased storage and I/O performance with improved efficiency—as long as they are properly installed. We looked at three backplane solutions that operate and manage either two or four 2.5” SAS/SATA drives.

Intel versus Nvidia. G45 versus GeForce 9400 mGPU. We looked at the latest versions of the most popular integrated chipset choices. Nvidia dominates the graphics testing, as expected, but is winning that battle sufficient to win the war?

Today, we're running a Phenom II X4 at several different clock speeds (up to almost 4 GHz) in an effort to find the best ratio between additional performance and the resulting power consumption.Which speed is best?

What ever became of AMD’s low-power advantage? We took the Athlon X2 5050e dual-core CPU and faced it off against several Intel Core 2 models. Intel’s edge doesn’t come unexpected, but our comparison reveals some interesting details.

The Universal Notebook Battery is a sleek, carry-on battery stack that can double your notebook battery capacity and run time, while providing an additional USB port to charge other devices.

So many high-end CompactFlash cards, so little time. Which is the fastest of them all? Kingston, Lexar, PNY, San Disk, Silicon Power, and Transcend's offerings get put through the ringer in hope of an award.

Do you want a flash SSD drive with additional USB connectivity, a portable dual-drive 2.5” RAID solution, or external flash storage? We looked at these sorts of solutions to help you make a more informed buying decision on some interesting tech.

Processor speed matters. We found that a fast solid state disk drive, such as Intel’s X25-E, can be greatly impaired by a system running with all of its CPU’s power saving features turned on. Surprised? Read our full analysis for the specifics.

Quad-core performance now requires only dual-core power consumption. Intel’s recently launched a couple of Core 2 Quads based on its 45 nm technology, and the new S-series chips deliver lots of performance without cranking up your utility bill.

Do you think that flash SSDs will take over the enterprise HDD segment soon? Not so fast! We looked at how hard drive I/O performance can be improved by shortening mechanical activity, via a process called “short stroking.”

Intel's new X25-E professional flash SSD is a rocket when it comes to fast I/O performance. Is Intel now the source of the best server drive? We compare the X25-E against its mainstream predecessor, competing SSDs, and 15,000 RPM HDDs.

The ioDrive represents flash memory storage connected to its host system via PCI Express. The product offers revolutionary performance, but does it also have the potential to revolutionize the storage market? We benchmark this device against two SSDs.

Perhaps you remember our $750 Computing Challenge system from last month. Germany sent over the configuration and benchmark results for its submission and we compare it against Team USA. The systems (and results) are definitely interesting.

Which is the best mainstream hard drive? Hitachi, Samsung, Seagate and Western Digital sent us their latest 500 GB SATA drives for this shootout and we measure their performance, temperature, and power requirements.

Atom is all about low cost and low power--but not necessarily efficiency, we've found. We tried the Atom 330 dual-core CPU and put it up against the reigning efficiency champion, a mainstream Core 2 Duo, on an integrated platform.

We received six fresh flash-based SSDs and put them up against the 15 drives we have already reviewed. Some are fast, some are efficient, but they all fail at combining power efficiency with great overall performance.

Gigabyte went to the drawing table and reinvented its motherboards using more copper, with an emphasis on high performance. Does the Ultra Durable 3 feature really lower operating temperatures and improve power efficiency?

Security is becoming more and more important for many users, and one of the most solid solutions is an OpenSource solution called TrueCrypt, which allows you to encrypt your entire system on the fly. We looked at this option's performance impact.

It’s huge, it’s flexible, it’s fast, it’s efficient, and it even looks nice. Lacie’s four-drive storage solution features eSATA and popular alternative interfaces, and seems to be close to perfect.

While two other 500 GB mobile hard drives have been available for a while, WD is the first to release this capacity in a model using the standard 9.5 mm height with two platters.