Today, Intel announced a new line of solid-state drives: the Intel SSD 510 Series. The new drives operate over 6Gbps SATA to take advantage of Intel’s new higher speed SATA bus interface (like the new MBPs). Speeds are now up to 500MB per second and 315MB per second for reading and writing respectively. That’s a pretty serious upgrade from just a year ago. The two drives available now are 250GB and 120GB and are priced at $584 and $284 in quantities of 1,000. Got three hundred grand lying around? → Read More
Fact: if you install Gran Turismo 5 on your PS3′s hard drive you’ll speed up loading times. Additional fact: if you install Gran Turismo 5 on your PS3′s solid state drive (SSD) you’ll speed up loading times considerably. And yes, you can even try this at home—maybe! → Read More
Looks like Apple is playing the heel again. It has asked PhotoFast to stop producing its 256MB SSD upgrade kits for the new MacBook Air. Boos can be heard all over the arena Why, Apple, why? Why’d you do it? → Read More
While I doubt the MacBook Air will render her secrets very willingly, you can, with a little effort, upgrade your SSD modules using Toshiba’s 2.2mm mSATA chips. The chips, called the Blade X-gale, will come in 64, 128, and 256GB sizes . No pricing just yet but expect them to be well within the $300-500 range. → Read More
Here’s a little tidbit of news; nothing ground-breaking, but right in line with a trend I’ve been watching for a year or two now. Kingston has released an improved version of their enterprise SSD line with a version that internalizes TRIM support, making OS support for the SSD management utility irrelevant. At the rate Kingston and everyone else are improving base SSD technology, can it really be wise to buy in right now? → Read More
Hitachi announced a new optical drive, a Hybrid SATA III which combines the optical technology with SSD. Details are non-existent, but combining an optical drive and with an SSD drive and you’re going to have one hot device. Hitachi announced the drive at the CEATEC trade show today, but didn’t mention any launch date, price, or capacity. [via Akihabara News] → Read More
OCZ just announced their latest SSD drive, the Onyx 2. The Onyx 2 is a 2.5 inch drive rated at a 270MBps read speed, and a 265MBps write speed. The new drives are available in either 120GB or 250GB, and rated at 1.5 million hours between failures. No word on when the new drives will be available, or how much they are going to cost. → Read More
The G-Drive Mini has a lot to offer for people who need FW and USB connectivity. There was some confusion about the retail price of this unit. You can get the HDD for $89 and that’s in the league of all the other drives out there. What else can the Mini offer? Click to read my review. → Read More
Can you believe it? That thing is a SanDisk 64GB SSD, read for installation into the tablet of your choice. While 64GB isn’t much for fans of 3D HD porn, it’s plenty for a little bit of music and some video. The chip has 160MB/sec sequential read and 100MB/sec sequential write, which is pretty darn fast, and you can chain these things together to make huge drives. They connect via a standard SATA interface. Not quite available to the masses but it looks like an exciting development. → Read More
I keep looking at SSDs, and then I keep changing my mind. The right combination of price, performance, and storage capacity just hasn’t hit yet. Another roundup done by yet another technology blog reviewed the latest generation of SSD products, only to come to the same conclusion: the performance hit at the low end price point continues to make going to SSD too impractical for many users. → Read More
It’s a fact that no one uses optical drives anymore and so why not replace the one in your late-model MBP with something a bit more useful like an SSD. It doesn’t really seem that hard as long you’re comfortable totally disemboweling your MacBook Pro. The SSD and optical drive both use SATA so it’s really plug and play and only requires a special adapter plate to properly hold the SSD in place. → Read More
Do you need 256GB of hard core storage running at 150MBps? I know you do. The OCZ Enzo, which is apparently only in render stage, looks like the monster that ate Cleaveland and should cost considerably more than you’re currently willing to pay. But still, 260MBps for the USB 3.0 is wild. → Read More
This is brilliant. I’m not 100% sure what the practical application is yet, but I think I want one. ATP built an SLC NAND-based solid state drive designed to plug directly into the USB header on your motherboard. Great idea right? → Read More
All the cool kids in the neighborhood are building their PCs with solid state drives these days. Who wants to use a plain old hard disk drive, what with its icky moving parts, when you can cruise along on a drive with zero moving parts? I mean, it’s no contest. Problem: SSDs are usually what I like to call “mad expensive.” You’re paying a heck of a lot for a fairly small drive… until now~! Super Talent has a brand new line of “value” SSDs that are low-ish in price. It’s all the benefit of an SSD without the incredibly high price. At least that’s the idea. → Read More
OCZ just rolled out the deets about its latest PCI-Express-powered SSD and man is it impressive. Forgot about that WD Velociraptor SATA 3.0 drive announced a few minutes ago, the new Z-Drive RS leaves that one back in the Jurassic Period. → Read More
All the cool kids are playing SSDs these days. So much so that every manufacturer wants of piece of the sweet cherry pie. Even Plextor who was previously known as an optical drive/media company has a set of 64GB and 128GB SSDs available now. Too bad these options tastes more like a supermart-made pie than your grandma’s home cooking. → Read More
While most SSDs currently cost more than netbooks and iPhones, there are a few low-cost options starting to become available. Just last week OCZ announced a sub-$100 40GB option and now even Intel has a cheap 40GB option that’s just now available. → Read More
My aunt called last night to ask about a laptop she saw advertised in the weekly circular. It had most of the features she wanted, and was priced lower via the ad than she’d seen online for a similarly configured laptop. This led to a brief discussion of name brand preferences for laptops, and the price differences between them. I had to explain to my aunt that you get what you pay for: a laptop is made up of lots of little parts, each available from a variety of OEMs and distributors. Different brand name laptops use different OEMs and distributors for their parts, so the quality of the individual components inside the laptops vary wildly. Generally speaking, better quality parts cost a bit more, but provide better performance and better reliability. A recent study from DRAMeXchange Technology (who?!) proves this point as it relates to solid state drives. → Read More
Solid state hard drives are increasing in popularity mainly because more are reaching the consumer market, therefore driving down prices. But most are still a bit pricey. Active has a new 1.8-inch set, however, that’s a bit more affordable if you don’t mind forgoing storage capacity. → Read More
I got up this morning and started thinking about the next thing I wanted to add to my PC. Like many of you, I’m into upgrading when I see fit to increase performance, and I think that putting Windows 7 on an SSD might be the way to go. So, like many of you, I decided to look at some of the most recent reviews and see what looked interesting from the price/performance standpoint. → Read More
