The State Of Solid State: Computex 2015

By Chris Ramseyer
published

G.Skill

G.Skill was one of the early DRAM companies that brought affordable client SSDs to market. Without controller IP or flash manufacturing, G.Skill relies on other companies to build the underlying technology. Still, it always seems to find a way to make the hardware look really cool.

The Phoenix Blade was G.Skill's first workstation-class SSD. We spotted it at Computex 2014 and noticed it start selling a few months later. Before Intel launched its SSD 750, the Phoenix Blade was the fastest workstation SSD you could buy thanks to an all-in-one RAID design.

Building on the Phoenix Blade's success, G.Skill is back with a lower-power solution that uses Phison's new PS5007-E7 NVMe eight-channel controller. It even looks a lot like the Phoenix Blade. And the similarities don't stop there: the new drive is called Phoenix Blade X. A cover kept us from seeing if G.Skill used an M.2-to-PCIe adapter or if the Phoenix Blade X is a full add-in card design. 

Although it's not exactly groundbreaking, this product is important because it shows that companies are preparing drives with the new Phison PS5007-E7 controller.

Chris Ramseyer
Chris Ramseyer
Chris Ramseyer is a Contributing Editor for Tom's Hardware US. He tests and reviews consumer storage.
50 Comments Comment from the forums
  • blackmagnum
    The time is ripe to change your old spinning catastrophe and embrace the now of SSD.
    Reply
  • Vivecss
    So have they fixed the data loss if not connected to electricity for more than a week thing?
    Reply
  • synphul
    Spinning catastrophe? My hdd doesn't perform much slower than my ssd for 90% of tasks, the biggest improvement was installing windows. For that I was impressed. An hdd shouldn't be a catastrophe, if it is I'd strongly suggest a better brand/model. Installed an ssd on a workstation and of all the upgrades it was the component I was least happy with. The new cpu and ram upgrade were by far more impressive. Not that I'm 'unhappy' with it, it is a little snappier though not enough to make me rush right out to buy another one for my other rig. If another 240gb ssd goes on sale for $60 like the first one I bought I might consider it. Pcie m.2 look appealing and great on paper but I suppose it would be of greater benefit to someone who is suffering a bottlenecked system due to storage in the first place.
    Reply
  • CaedenV
    So have they fixed the data loss if not connected to electricity for more than a week thing?
    Yes, about 5 years ago.
    SSDs are still no archival media, and they will corrupt after a year or two without power. But if you are the sort of person who travels a lot and unplugs your PC for 2-3 months at a time then it is not a real concern anymore.
    Reply
  • wtfxxxgp
    So have they fixed the data loss if not connected to electricity for more than a week thing?

    I'm so out of touch that I didn't even know that was "a thing"

    O.o
    Reply
  • Vivecss
    So have they fixed the data loss if not connected to electricity for more than a week thing?
    Yes, about 5 years ago.
    SSDs are still no archival media, and they will corrupt after a year or two without power. But if you are the sort of person who travels a lot and unplugs your PC for 2-3 months at a time then it is not a real concern anymore.

    Really? 5 years ago? Because I've gone on vacation for about a month and my Windows wont even start anymore. And that was about a year ago. Heard a rumor that the 3D stacking technology thing managed to eliminate this problem and i was waiting for some more good news about that before buying a new SSD.
    Reply
  • CRamseyer
    Spinning catastrophe? My hdd doesn't perform much slower than my ssd for 90% of tasks, the biggest improvement was installing windows. For that I was impressed. An hdd shouldn't be a catastrophe, if it is I'd strongly suggest a better brand/model. Installed an ssd on a workstation and of all the upgrades it was the component I was least happy with. The new cpu and ram upgrade were by far more impressive. Not that I'm 'unhappy' with it, it is a little snappier though not enough to make me rush right out to buy another one for my other rig. If another 240gb ssd goes on sale for $60 like the first one I bought I might consider it. Pcie m.2 look appealing and great on paper but I suppose it would be of greater benefit to someone who is suffering a bottlenecked system due to storage in the first place.

    A $60 240GB SSD is the reason why you don't feel a big performance increase over your HDD.
    Reply
  • WyomingKnott
    "Really? 5 years ago? Because I've gone on vacation for about a month and my Windows wont even start anymore. And that was about a year ago."

    But how old was the SSD? The model, not the particular one that you own.
    Reply
  • synphul
    It was on sale. At the time, ocz vector 150's were going for $180. It stays neck and neck with the samsung 840 evo (850's weren't even available yet) and the two trade blows a bit. The vector 150 has slightly slower random reads and the samsung has slightly slower write speeds. It was chosen for a workstation doing content creation with larger files where write speed was preferred. Maybe people feel such a huge difference over their hdd's because they're using junk hdd's? My wd re4 gives me no issues. The only time aside from bootup that ssd's seem to have a huge performance gain is during testing where a longer sustained data transfer is occurring. Something most people won't encounter under normal use of a pc, instead it will more than likely operate in small bursts. So technically, it was a $180 ssd using the newer 19nm toshiba nand. Hardly a junk ssd.
    Reply
  • CRamseyer
    When you said it I was thinking something along the lines of a V300 with async flash.
    Reply