RunCore Kylin II SSD (100 GB)
RunCore divides its SSDs into prosumer and professional products. This makes sense, since relatively few solid state drives fit well in the consumer category, owing to high cost or insufficient capacity. RunCore offers PCI Express-based drives, 1.8” models, and many 2.5” products, such as the Kylin we received.
Strangely, we received a 100 GB drive that isn't noted on RunCore's Web site as of this writing. Only 64, 128, and 256 GB models are currently listed. However, the ingredients for the 100 and 120 GB models seem to be identical, very much like the differences between the Phoenix and Phoenix Pro drives.
The Kylin II is also based on the SandForce SF-1200 controller, and the drive performs accordingly. Read performance hovers between 196 and 234 MB/s, but may drop to 161 MB/s when used aggressively. However, we found that write performance stays above this level at all times. Our performance results show the Kylin II as one of the fastest SSDs tested. Unfortunately, the drive is not available in North America, so it is being excluded from all price-related indexes.
