07/20, 9:05am
Crucial M225 SSDs Ship
Crucial this morning acted on its promise and shipped its M225 solid-state drives. They make up only the second line of SSDs at the memory producer and target the high-end notebook or server space with maximum read and write speeds of 250MB and 200MB per second. All of the drives attach through SATA and SATA II interfaces and support the company's own SK01 drive kit, which carries both a 3.5-inch bay adapter to use the SSDs with desktops and a USB external enclosure.
more
07/10, 3:25pm
Crucial M225 Preview
Crucial this afternoon said it should have a major update to its solid-state drive line later this month. The 2.5-inch M225 series will use more up to date multi-level cell (MLC) storage and a new memory controller that significantly improves speed. Estimates put the peak performance of the fastest, 256GB drive at 250MB per second for data reads and 200MB per second for writes.
more
04/30, 12:10pm
CW: SSD drives overrated
People contemplating SSD versions of computers like the MacBook Air -- which costs approximately $1,300 more than the HDD edition -- may not find the performance difference worthwhile, writes Computerworld. The magazine has conducted a test of 32GB SSDs by Crucial and Ridata, in comparison to two 7200rpm hard drives by Seagate. All four drives used cloned copies of Vista Home Premium, and were benchmarked by software called HD Tach.
more
04/09, 3:35pm
Crucial DDR3 Notebook RAM
Crucial has announced itself as the first major memory producer to offer DDR3 RAM for notebook computers, opening the door to systems based on Intel's upcoming Centrino 2 platform. The 204-pin memory holds its advantage over DDR2 by running both at a higher clock speed and offering more overall bandwidth. Its 1,066MHz rate matches the system bus of faster upcoming Core 2 Duo and Extreme processors while also offering 10.6GB per second of headroom through improvements made to DDR3 itself. The combination doubles the practical data rate of 800MHz DDR2 memory, Crucial estimates.
more
02/20, 11:00am
Crucial RAM for Mac Pro
Lexar Media today unveiled fully buffered Crucial 800MHz memory modules for the Mac Pro, available in 2GB, 4GB, and 8GB paired kits. The memory includes heat dissipation fins to balance the temperature, and feature a lifetime warranty. The new Mac Pro is capable of holding 32GB of memory, and Apple states that each increase to the system memory enhances the machine's performance due to the nature of the RAM pairings. Lexar did not unveil pricing, but said the modules are currently shipping.
more
01/02, 2:15pm
Crucial SSD
Crucial today became the latest storage producer to explore solid-state hard drives with a new take on the formula. Simply titled the Crucial SSD, the 2.5-inch disk holds either 32GB or 64GB of memory and is meant as a faster, more durable drop-in replacement for conventional rotating hard drives. Like most of its kind, the SSD has no moving parts and is almost completely skip proof; without the need to spin, it also has an access time of under 1 ms and often performs faster than the old technology, Crucial says. Unlike most such drives, however, the new disk is not limited to the inside of a computer. A new external kit converts the device into a USB drive for easily removable storage.
more
