SSDs

When Western Digital introduced its Ultrastar DC SN861 SSDs earlier this year, the company did not disclose which controller it used for these drives, which made many observers presume that WD was using an in-house controller. But a recent teardown of the drive shows that is not the case; instead, the company is using a controller from Fadu, a South Korean company founded in 2015 that specializes on enterprise-grade turnkey SSD solutions. The Western Digital Ultrastar DC SN861 SSD is aimed at performance-hungry hyperscale datacenters and enterprise customers which are adopting PCIe Gen5 storage devices these days. And, as uncovered in photos from a recent Storage Review article, the drive is based on Fadu's FC5161 NVMe 2.0-compliant controller. The FC5161 utilizes 16 NAND channels supporting...

Corsair Releases Neutron/Neutron GTX SSD Pricing

When we published our Neutron/Neutron GTX SSD review this morning we didn't have official pricing from Corsair. That's not all that unusual as pricing for many components can be...

3 by Anand Lal Shimpi on 8/20/2012

Corsair Neutron GTX SSD Review (240GB): Link A Media Controller Tested

Not interested in diving headfirst into a market full of teething pains, Corsair held off on its first SSD introduction. Even after it entered the market, Corsair remained conservative...

36 by Anand Lal Shimpi on 8/20/2012

Intel Brings TRIM to RAID-0 SSD Arrays on 7-Series Motherboards, We Test It

In an unusually terse statement, Intel officially confirmed that the ATA TRIM command now passes through to RAID-0 SSD arrays on some systems running Intel's RST (Rapid Storage Technology...

41 by Anand Lal Shimpi on 8/16/2012

OWC Announces 480GB SSD Upgrade for MacBook Pro with Retina Display

In our review of the MacBook Pro with Retina Display I mentioned that the base $2199 configuration is near perfect, save for its 256GB SSD. With no room for...

12 by Anand Lal Shimpi on 8/14/2012

The Intel SSD 910 Review

The increase in compute density in servers over the past several years has significantly impacted form factors in the enterprise. Whereas you used to have to move to a...

39 by Anand Lal Shimpi on 8/9/2012

Plextor Releases M5 Pro SSD: Say Hello to Marvell 88SS9187 and 19nm Toshiba NAND

This is an announcement we have been waiting for. In our Plextor M3 Pro and M5S reviews, we mentioned that the limits of Marvell's 88SS9174 controller have more or...

23 by Kristian Vättö on 8/7/2012

OCZ Vertex 4 Review (128GB), Firmware 1.4/1.5 Tested

When OCZ released the Vertex 4 in April, it brought us excepionally great write performance. Based on OCZ's Everest 2 controller (Marvell IP with custom firmware), the Vertex 4...

60 by Kristian Vättö on 8/4/2012

Buffalo MiniStation Thunderbolt Review - An External with USB 3.0 and Thunderbolt

Back when Thunderbolt (then Intel Lightpeak) was optical, I was actively involved in covering the interface, partly out of professional curiosity due to my optical background, partly because I...

61 by Brian Klug on 8/1/2012

The Intel SSD 330 Review (60GB, 120GB, 180GB)

Earlier this year Intel introduced its second SandForce based SSD: the Intel SSD 330. While Intel had previously reserved the 5xx line for 3rd party controllers, the 330 marks...

64 by Anand Lal Shimpi on 8/1/2012

Crucial's v4 SSD: Affordable 3Gbps SATA SSD based on Phison's PS3105 Controller

Crucial's m4 SSD has been extremely popular. It's priced very competitively and although it's not the fastest SATA 6Gb/s SSD, its performance is still very good. Crucial has now...

20 by Kristian Vättö on 7/31/2012

Plextor M5S Now Available

Plextor launched the M5S SSD about two weeks ago and we were among the first to review it. Plextor did not have a specific release date at the time...

10 by Kristian Vättö on 7/27/2012

Plextor M5S 256GB Review

Plextor is one of those OEMs who have quietly been making their way into the SSD market. They haven't been aggressive with marketing. Their drives are not featured on...

43 by Kristian Vättö on 7/18/2012

Plextor Releases M5S SSD Series

Plextor has updated its SSD lineup with something new: the M5S. It's based on the same Marvell 88SS9174 controller as Plextor's M3 and M3 Pro, which we've been quite...

17 by Kristian Vättö on 7/11/2012

Corsair Releases Force Series GS SSDs

Corsair has released a new member of its Force series SSDs called the Force GS. The Force GS is based on SandForce's SF-2200 series controller (most likely SF-2281) and...

10 by Kristian Vättö on 7/9/2012

Plextor M3 Pro (256GB) Review

If you are an active reader, you might remember our Plextor M3 review from a few months back. As I noted in the review, I wasn't expecting much when...

56 by Kristian Vättö on 7/1/2012

Hynix Enters Consumer SSD Market with SandForce Based SSDs - 20nm NAND is Also Here UPDATE: It's actually 26nm

Hynix has been in the SSD industry for years but their SSDs have been available only to OEMs. Their NAND is used in various other brand SSDs but Hynix...

12 by Kristian Vättö on 6/25/2012

OWC Releases 960GB Mercury Electra MAX 3G SSD

OWC has released a 960GB version of their Mercury Electra 3G SSD series. The drive uses two SandForce SF-2181 controllers, configured in RAID 0 using Silicon Image's RAID controller...

20 by Kristian Vättö on 6/25/2012

Hynix to Acquire Link A Media Devices (LAMD)

Hynix published a press release that they have acquired Link A Media Devices (commonly referred to as simply LAMD). The cost of the acquisition has not been revealed, nor...

1 by Kristian Vättö on 6/19/2012

The next-gen MacBook Pro with Retina Display: SSD Analysis

After a week in Taiwan, and a weekend in San Francisco, I'm finally back home and hard at work on the Retina Display MacBook Pro Review. One of the...

19 by Anand Lal Shimpi on 6/13/2012

The New MacBook Air Uses Toshiba's SATA 6Gb/s SSDs UPDATE: Samsung Too

Yesterday's keynote was certainly one of the biggest events for Macs that Apple has held in years. The main focus was obviously in the new MacBook Pro with Retina...

10 by Kristian Vättö on 6/12/2012

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