SSD

We were invited to speak on two panels at this year's 2011 Flash Memory Summit. Now that the conference is over, we wanted to circle back with some thoughts on what we saw and provide an explanation as to why we test SSDs the way that we do.

It's a foregone conclusion that SSDs are must-haves in performance-oriented PCs, but our testing reveals that solid-state drives are reasonable upgrades in older mainstream machines, too. We build three old boxes to gauge the impact of an SSD on each.

Does a lack of moving parts translate to higher reliability? That's the assumption many enthusiasts and IT professionals make about SSDs. We go straight to the data centers using these devices, dig into failure rate statistics, and suggest otherwise.

The popularity of SandForce's first-gen controller is translating to a lot of traction with its 6 Gb/s offering. Five SSD vendors sent us seven 120 GB models based on the second-gen logic. What makes them different? An extensive benchmark suite tells all.

When it comes to storage, the 3.5” and 2.5” form factors are most popular. But they're not always suitable for notebooks and netbooks. Samsung is the second vendor to introduce an mSATA-based SSD, after Intel demonstrated its SSD 310 earlier this year.

When it comes time to hunt down the ultimate in storage performance, you simply cannot settle for standard SSDs. Instead, look to PCI Express-based drives that circumvent the limitations of SATA. We have products from Fusion-io, LSI, and OCZ on the bench.

The market is brimming with motherboard options, and businesses of all sizes face the unenviable task of trying to decide which vendor to place at the heart of their productivity desktops.

With the market for solid-state drives continually expanding, we wanted to explore some of the most popular tweaks enthusiasts use to purportedly improve performance and free up capacity. We break out the benchmarks and put them to the test.

We repeat our extreme SSD RAID project for the third time and arrange 16 Samsung 470-series SSDs based on MLC NAND in a RAID 0 array to reach new levels of performance. We weren't as fortunate this time, but not for the reasons you might suspect.

Two more SSDs recently landed in our lab. We cover the "Postville Refresh" Intel SSD 320 and Crucial’s new m4, and stack them up against Intel's SSD 510 and OCZ’s Vertex 3. If you're shopping for an SSD, read this comparison before you make your choice.

RAID arrays with dozens of hard drives are not uncommon for reaching certain performance levels. We demonstrate how beautifully SSD RAID arrays can scale. There may come a time when a few flash-based drives will replace entire farms of hard disks.

After defining the high-end SSD market with its X25-M, Intel is finally ready with its first 6 Gb/s solid-state drive, the SSD 510-series. Does the company's latest follow in its predecessor's footsteps, or does OCZ's Vertex 3 lineup go uncontested?

Several readers contacted me in the past two weeks, complaining about OCZ's recent adoption of 25 nm NAND and its effect on the capacity and performance of certain SSDs that they expected to be both larger and faster. I bought my own drives to compare.

Intel's X25-M revolutionized the SSD market. But then SandForce turned it upside down, coming out of nowhere to establish a dominant position. Today we see the company preview its second-generation controller, unleashed over a native 6 Gb/s interface.

Solid state drives can deliver exceptional performance, but they're not necessarily fire-and-forget upgrades. You'll only really get the best possible experience from them if you pay attention to details like TRIM support and available firmware updates.

You're on a budget. You want to know if it'd be better to stripe a couple of smaller SSDs or simply buy one larger performance-oriented drive. Today we're comparing one, two, and four 30 GB Kingston SSDNow V drives to Zalman’s new 128 GB N-series SSD.

It only takes one or two modern SSDs to outperform business-class RAID arrays with four or eight hard drives. We're running a full comparison and looking at the implications for high-performance systems when you make the transition to flash-based tech.

SATA 6Gb/s not fast enough? OCZ's new High-Speed Data Link serves up to 2 GB/s through a PCIe-like connection. Complementing the interface technology is a similarly-new 3.5" SSD called IBIS. Rated for up to 120,000 IOPS, enthusiasts should take note.