Verbatim has released new 2.5-inch SSD upgrade kits. The kits include SSD drives plus the hardware and software needed to install the new drive and clone the old drive. The kits are available with either Verbatim's 64GB, 128GB and 256GB SATA II drives or its 120GB or 240GB SATA III SSD drives.
Fusion-io has expanded its enterprise SSD line with two new drive systems, the ioDrive2 and ioDrive2 Duo. Thoughput maxes at 3.0GB/s read and 2.6 GB/s write speed for the 1.2TB model ioDrive2 Duo. The drives feature low latency access for mixed workloads with 15 microsecond write latency, over 700,000 read IOPS and over 900,000 write IOPS. An intelligent self-healing feature called provides complete, chip-level fault tolerance, which enables the drives to continue to function without interruption after a single- or a multi-chip failure.
Other World Computing are offering an entry-level solid-state drive, the 30GB Mercury Extreme Pro 3G, as an option for adding SSD speed to targeted uses, such as a boot-only drive, scratch disk or app storage assistant, providing SSD speed for some operations while leaving jobs and storage that require larger capacities to traditional platter-based hard drives or larger SSDs. The company sells kits that allow the drives to replace the optical units on some computers or a Mac Pro hard drive bay.
Other World Computing (OWC) has announced the availability of 6Gbps (6G) Mercury Aura Pro Express SSDs for the 2011 model MacBook Airs (older MBAs can still use the third-generation version of the drives). Currently only available in two sizes -- 120GB and 240GB -- the 6G drives can be more than three times faster than the Apple SSD factory options. The drives feature protection against write speed degradation over time, and make full use of the 6Gb per second SATA bus.
OCZ has introduced its latest storage system, the RevoDrive Hybrid, which pairs an solid-state drive with a standard disk drive. The hybrid storage is geared for desktop computers, build upon a PCI Express card rather than utilizing typical drive connectors. Operating system files and applications can be stored on the 100GB SSD for faster speeds, while the HDD provides an additional 1TB of capacity for other content.
Other World Computing has announced that it is lowering the price of its entry-level 60GB Mercury Electra 6G solid-state drive. The drive uses the latest SSD technology and posts up to 556MB per second read times and 523MB per second sustain write times, more than seven times as fast as typical 5400 rpm hard drives. The drive comes in two versions (consumer and enterprise) and both are compatible with RAID 1 or SPAN configurations.
Intel is promising a fix for its 320-series SSD drives within two weeks, in the form of a firmware update. Macworld reported today that the chipmaker has isolated the issue that saw a number of the 320-series solid state drives fail after a power outage, resulting in a Bad Context 13x Error. The firmware fix promises to avoid future issues but will not recover lost data for owners currently suffering from the issue. Intel has come under fire for its slow response to the issue, which was first reported months ago and acknowledged by Intel in late July.
Kingston is now shipping its first solid-state drives to use the SATA 3.0 6Gb/s interface, the HyperX SSD. The HyperX SSD drives are available in either 120GB and 240GB capacity and use the SandForce SF-2281 controller. Sequential read/write throughput can reach 555MB/s and 510MB/s, respectively. Maximum 4KB random performance is 95,000 IOPS read and 70,000 IOPS write on the 120GB model.
SanDisk has started shipping its latest SSDs to retailers. The SanDisk Ultra SATA II range is being pitched at enthusiasts interested in upgrading their own desktops or notebooks or extending the life of an older piece of equipment. SanDisk argue that replacing a traditional spinning hard drive with an SSD is more cost-effective than buying a new computer.
OCZ has unveiled a SATA III controller that can be used to build solid-state drives with up to 1TB of storage capacity. Taking advantage of OCZ's buyout of Indilinx, the Everest SATA 3.0 SSD platform incorporates a 6Gbps host interface and a dual-core controlling processor. OCZ claimed that the architecture will enable a boot time 50 percent quicker than possible with existing SSDs.
The release of OS X 10.6.8 has brought improvements to both gamers and those using Apple-approved models of solid-state drives (SSD), MacRumors reports. Apart from some model-specific builds of 10.6.6 and 10.6.7, OS X has generally lacked TRIM support, but as of 10.6.8 TRIM now appears to be available in all Macs capable of running it, and will also be included in Lion. The update has also brought significant graphics improvements, according to testers on Steam and other forums.
Intel’s forthcoming 700-series SSD benchmarks have been leaked ahead of the formal unveiling of the drives. The 720 Ramsdale SSD is the performance leader demonstrating sequential read performance at 200MB/s and up to 1800MB/s when writing, which is exceptional. Their endurance is also impressive and can sustain up to 32PB of 8K random writes before performance begins to degrade, in the best performing model. The 720-series will be available in 200GB and 400GB versions.
Other World Computing has launched a new upgrade SSD, the Mercury Electra 6G. The drive is SandForce-based, and designed for SATA 3.0 ports running up to 6Gbps. This allows sustained read rates of 556MBps, or slightly slower writes at 523MBps. Both speeds are said to be up to seven times faster than stock PC hard drives.
Other World Computing has launched a set of upgrades for the 2010 MacBook Air series, debuting its OWC Mercury Aura Pro Express Solid State Drive today. It offers up to four times the capacity of the factory storage space, and features seven percent over-provisioning and SandForce DuraClass data protection. The SSDs deliver nearly 70 percent more speed over the 2010 MacBook Air's factory drives, and up to 3.5x speed boosts in critical 4K random read/writes over the stock drive.
The 2011 iMac is already making use of Intel's BD82Z68 platform controller hub, various investigations show, including one by TonyMacx86. The Z68 platform is not officially scheduled to debut until May 11th, meaning that Intel has once again given Apple early access to new technology. Apple is for example the only computer maker with access to Thunderbolt, a 10Gbps port standard.
A leaked roadmap for Intel's of solid-state drives indicates the company is planning five additions to its SSD lines this year. According to the leak, Intel will establish a new high-end line with the "Ramsdale" SSD 720 Series, and the "Lyndonville" SSD 710 Series. Two new lines, the 20GB "Larsen Creek" and 40GB/80GB "Paint Creek," appear to be designed for high-performance caching functions such as improving boot time. According to the leaked roadmap, Intel will also extend the SSD 510 line with the "Cherryville" SSD 520 Series.
Lexar Media announced that its Crucial brand m4 solid-state drives are now available worldwide. The high performance SSDs come in 64GB, 128GB, 256GB, and 512GB capacities. The drives use Micron's 25-nanometer NAND flash technology and a serial ATA six gigabit-per-second interface. They feature read speed of up to 415MB per second and write speed up to 260MB per second. The drives have a 2.5-inch form factor.
Toshiba has introduced a new line of solid-state drives (SSDs) geared for enterprise customers. The MKx001GRZB series is built around a 2.5-inch form factor, pairing 32nm NAND flash with a 6Gb/sec SAS interface. The drives are designed for enterprise servers, local storage, or network-attached storage systems.
Apple has removed SSDs as an option for Xserve orders, the company's online business store shows. When choosing a custom configuration, institutional buyers can now only pick from conventional hard drives in capacities up to 2TB. Business representatives from the company are, unusually, said to have no explanation.
Foremay Incorporated, a leading OEM manufacturer of industrial Solid State Disk (SSD) drives, announced today it is shipping slim 1.8-inch micro SATA SSD devices in volume to commercial, industrial and military clients. In addition to being small, the read/write speeds and thinness of the 1.8-inch class of SSD devices is improving; the company now offers capacities up to 400 gigabytes, speeds of 280 megabytes per second, and form factors that include a "bare" drive just 3.3 millimeters (0.13 inches) thick.
Coming this Halloween is a PCI-Express card offering up to four user-installable on-board SSD expansion drive modules, with an option for an embedded 16GB or 32GB SSD module to improve performance. Called Wings, the card comes with its own on-board OS called Virtue that can boot on any Mac, Linux or Windows machine and features a disk configuration utility to allow users to configure the card as they like. Throughput can reach up to 1080Mb/second read speed, 900Mb write on a fully-populated card.
Corsair has expanded its Force Series of 2.5-inch SSDs with several new models in capacities ranging from 60GB to 240GB. Each of the drives integrates a Sandforce SF-1200 SSD processor which supports 4K random write performance of 180MB/s using ATTO's benchmarking software. The drives are also claimed to sustain 15K IOPS.
Diglloyd has released an update to its Mac performance optimization suite, diglloydTools. Version 2.0 features performance enhancement for solid-state drives (SSDs). The recondition command is claimed to restore performance on SSDs that begin to show deteriorating transfer speeds, especially with write operations on older drives.
OCZ Technology on Wednesday introduced the Onyx SATA II 2.5-inch solid-state drive (SSD) series of storage components with a focus on low cost. The multi-level cell (MLC)-based SSDs feature 64MB of integrated cache and data transfer speeds of up to 125MB/s while reading, and up to 70MB/s during write operations.
MacNN has reviewed OWC's Mercury On-The-Go Pro SSD drive. The unit is now available in three sizes: 64GB (reviewed), 128GB and 256GB. The drive utilizes FireWire 800 and USB 2.0 connections, and comes with cables and a carrying case -- an optional AC adapter is available, though the drive generally runs on bus power. Models have no moving parts, storing data in flash memory.
As part of Samsung's initiative to promote environmentally-friendly efforts, the company has highlighted the energy efficiency of current SSD storage and DDR3 memory components. The use of higher-density DDR3 memory is said to reduce power consumption by up to 70 percent compared to DDR2 modules. The power savings is attributed to lower voltage requirements, as low as 1.35 volts, and the energy-efficient 40nm manufacturing technology.
Samsung has introduced its latest solid state drive (SSD), the 256GB FlashSSD, geared for gamers. The component is claimed to offer a five-fold improvement in data loading time compared to traditional hard drives, while running with lower power consumption.
OCZ has released its OCZ Solid 2 SATA II 2.5” Solid State Drive, using MLC-based NAND flash memory for a balance between performance and price. While MLC memory is slightly slower than SLC memory, the new drives deliver 100MB/sec write (120GB model) and 125MB/sec read speeds and a seek time of less than 0.1ms using the less expensive memory type. The drives carry a 64MB onboard cache and a three-year warranty, while mean time between failure is rated at 1.5 million hours.
Intel may be ready to launch new solid-state drives based on 34nm NAND technology within two weeks or less, a report claims. Rumored since January, the drives are expected to ship in 80, 160 and 320GB capacities, the last being significant for more practically replacing a conventional hard disk. Other capacities may also be in the works, dense enough to replace many notebook hard drives, a source says.
SanDisk has begun shipping its next-generation SSD drives geared for netbooks, the pSSD P2 and S2. Both series of components feature new non-volatile nCache technology which is claimed to enable a five-fold increase in random write performance compared to HDDs, an important advancement for netbooks that use full-featured operating systems such as XP or Ubuntu. The technology is designed to reduce instances of stalling or "shuddering" experienced with earlier-generation SSDs.
Toshiba on Thursday introduced the dynabook SS RX2/WAJ, its latest notebook that features a 512GB SSD. The drive utilizes 2-bit-per-cell multi-level NAND flash memory to quadruple the density compared to the company's previous 128GB offerings, while a new controller is claimed to increase read speeds by 230-percent to 230MB/s. Write speeds have also been boosted by 450-percent to 180MB/s.
Japanese manufacturer PhotoFast has produced the G-Monster PCIe SSD, a new solid-state drive designed around extreme specifications. Whereas most SSDs are limited to 256GB or less, the G-Monster starts at that level, and additionally comes in 512GB and 1TB capacities, rivaling some hard drives. The G-Monster is substantially longer however, closer in size to a high-end video card.
pureSilicon this week showed its 1TB 2.5-inch SSD drive (pictured below). Featuring standard SATA II drive interface, the device, is "the most compact SSD per gigabyte: 15.40GB per cubic centimeter in a 2.5-inch form-factor" -- at least three times greater than any other SSD on the market, the company claims. The company says the high density has been achieved through innovative engineering techniques and its "exceptionally" thin enclosure and that four of the devices can fit into the same form factor as a typical 3.5-inch drive. Currently, the company say the SSD line is built for server, networking, datacenter, supercomputing, and professional media, but the technology lays the groundwork for high-capacity SSD for consumers.
Samsung Electronics has extended its line of full-HD digital camcorders with four new models - the HMX-H106, HMX-H105, HMX-H104, and HMX-H100. In addition to full HD video, the new H-Series offers a renowned Schneider Kreuznach Varioplan HD lens with Optical Image Stabilization, H.264 and internal Solid State Drives to provide onboard memory. Samsung's new flagship HMX-H106 features an internal 64GB Solid State Drive (SSD), increasing both write performance and dramatically reduces power consumption. The company claims that when actively reading and writing data, Samsung's SSD technology consumes approximately 1/8th of the power of a comparable HDD.
Eric Cheng of Echeng.com says he has successfully installed and run a RAID 0 SSD array in a MacBook Pro, with strong performance results. Utilizing two 120GB OCZ SATA SSD notebook hard drives, and an MCE OptiBay hard drive adapter (placed in the MacBook Pro's SuperDrive bay), Cheng was able to configure the two drives and set them up in a striped RAID 0 array, and install a bootable copy of Mac OS X.
In the wake of last Friday's leak, Intel has now formally announced its Mainstream series of SSD drives. Models will be available in 1.8- and 2.5-inch sizes, and rely on MLC (multi-level cell) NAND memory, which should in theory aid to keep prices down. One of the first examples is the 80GB X25-M, which is also Intel's first SATA-based SSD for notebook and desktop OEM builders.
Sunnyvale-based OCZ on Thursday unveiled new Core Series V2 SATA II 2.5-inch SSD drives, offering users speedy 170 megabyte-per-second read and 98 megabyte-per-second write times, with much larger sizes. The drives represent a continued effort for OCZ to push down the prices of SSDs for mainstream users. While OCZ declines to supply exact prices from its release, it says that the new Core Series V2 drives cost half of what comparable products do, while offering sizes of up to 250GB.
Intel has announced the availability of a new solid-state drive, a variant of the Z-P230. While a 40-pin ZIF version for PATA connections remains available, Intel has introduced a new PCIe "mini-card" model which is even smaller. The PATA model is itself said to be four times smaller than a normal 1.8-inch mechanical hard drive. Read and write speeds remain at 38 and 10Mbps, respectively.
Semiconductor maker Indilinx has upped the potential throughput of SSD drives, an announcement claims. The company says that its Barefoot controller, just out of development, is capable of peak read/write speeds up to 230MBps, allegedly the fastest on the market. This speed is entirely dependent on the type of memory used however, and in practicality it operates at 170MBps with SLC (single-level) NAND memory, or 200/160MBps using MLC (multi-level) NAND.
Seagate is rumored to be looking into buying out Intel's 49 percent stake in the IM Flash Technologies joint venture between the chip maker and Micron, a flash memory manufacturer, according to analysts. That is just one option for Seagate, but the analysts say the company would be better off buying into SanDisk, as it is not involved with any other companies and is less costly. Furthermore, they maintain that Seagate needs to purchase or team up with a NAND flash memory maker in order to be successful in its solid state drive (SSD) production.
TDK will debut its HS1-series solid-state disk drives at the Computex Taipei 2008 show due to start tomorrow in Taiwan. At 1.8 inches, the drives are the smallest on the market to use a Micro SATA interface, and are meant for notebook computers and industrial devices. The drives are available in 16, 32 and 64GB capacities, and use single-level cell NAND flash memory. Prototype versions of the HS1 drives were first shown at CEATEC in 2007, and TDK says are now ready for use in industrial devices.
Samsung late on Sunday promised what it says is a breakthrough in solid-state drives with the launch of its first 256GB SSD. The drive offers twice the capacity of the Korean firm's previous 128GB SSD but is also much faster. The 256GB edition reads sequential data at 200MB per second, twice the rate of the original model, while also seeing an even greater increase in write speeds: where the earlier drive writes at 70MB per second, the new SSD writes at 160MB per second. This comes in a chassis that is also described as one of Samsung's thinnest at 9.5mm (0.37in), making it suitable for very thin and light notebooks.
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.
Seagate has begun the first of what may be several lawsuits against makers of flash memory, show filings from the US District Court in San Francisco. It has accused STEC, formerly known as Simple Technology, of violating four patents it owns, connected to the creation of flash memory -- should it win, Seagate could be granted an injunction against STEC products as well as unspecified damages. Seagate CEO Bill Watkins argues that compensation would be well-due, as it has invested heavily in developing technology for SSD drives, and it has tried to persuade other companies to license its patents.
MCE Technologies today unveiled the QuickStream SS, a self-powered solid-state drive designed for standard and high-definition video capture. The QuickStream SS is ideal in situations where vibration or other environmental factors contribute to a less-than-desirable shooting environment for standard platter-based capture methods. Size configurations were not mentioned, but MCE will ship both a 2 hour and four hour model, for $1800 and $2800 respectively.
Once again taking advantage of its Shanghai Developer Forum, Intel has announced its first-ever line of self-branded solid-state drives. Previously codenamed "Rocket," the drives are SATA models available in 1.8- and 2.5-inch sizes, and in capacities ranging from a standard 32GB to an unusually large 160GB. Each drive is also said to be ruggedized, and tested against forces up to 1,500G.
Toshiba’s Japan-only new Dynabook SS RX1 is the first ever notebook to offer a 128GB solid-state drive (SSD), matching the storage capacity of conventional hard-disk drives with the speeds associated with flash drives. The model will be available about nine months after Toshiba also unveiled the first laptop with a 64GB SSD drive. In North America, the RX1’s equivalent is the Portégé R500, already a holder of many “world’s first” accolades.
Imation has entered the burgeoning field of SSD storage with two sets of drives, designed in collaboration with Mtron. The first of these are the MOBI 3000s, SATA disks meant for the consumer market; these consist of 16 and 32GB 2.5-inch drives, as well as 16, 32 and 64GB 3.5-inch models. The drives are capable of reading at 100MBs, and writing at 80MBs; random access speed is just 0.1ms. Prices start at approximately $700.
HP today announced two new energy-efficient desktop computers, both of which use a solid-state drive to store data, and are compliant with the Energy Star 4.0 standard. The solid-state drives provide a number of benefits, such as faster system startup times, better reliability and durability, while maintaining a smaller footprint than a traditional hard drive. The ultra-slim HP Compaq dc7800 uses Intel Core 2 Duo processors with optional vPro technology, and Verdiem Surveyor network power management software, which can lower the energy cost for the computer to $10 per year, when combined. HP is selling the dc7800 for $1300.
OQO's presence at CES is being used to release new options for the model 02, its Windows-based UMPC. Buyers can now choose a new SSD drive, doubled in size from 32 to 64GB; the option is significant in that few full-sized notebooks offer a 64GB SSD, let alone a device as small as a UMPC. The model 02 has also been given the option of a "sunlight-optimized" display, making it more practical for people working outdoors. The previous screen continues to be the default.
