There has always been some level of lottery involved when buying an SSD-equipped Mac. The first Mac to start the lottery was the 2010 MacBook Air, which initially used Toshiba's SSDs but later it was found that some units were shipping Samsung SSD 470 based drives. Up until last year Apple kept using the same Toshiba and Samsung SSDs; the 2012 refresh finally brought SATA 6Gbps SSDs to Macs and, of course, another round of lottery too. The 2012 MacBook Air kept using drives from both Toshiba and Samsung, albeit both were newer generation (Toshiba's is SF-2281 based, Samsung is PM830). The rMBP, however, used only SSDs from Samsung, and the 256GB and 512GB SSDs in the MacBook Air were all Samsung made as...
Checking Their Pulse: Hisense's Google TV Box at CES
So, Google TV is still happening. Indeed, more players are getting into the game than ever. Hisense is a Chinese OEM/ODM that's seen steady growth in the television market...
10 by Jason Inofuentes on 1/14/2013
G.hn and HomePlug Head for Showdown
It has been a while since we covered PLC (powerline communication) technology here, but we took the opportunity to check up on the latest and greatest in the area...
5 by Ganesh T S on 1/14/2013
SanDisk Ultra Plus SSD Review (256GB)
SanDisk is a household name as far as NAND storage is concerned. You can’t walk into an electronics retailer and not be bombarded with SanDisk made CompactFlash and SD...
34 by Anand Lal Shimpi on 1/7/2013
Marvell Adds NVDRIVE to DragonFly Family of Enterprise Storage Accelerators
Marvell's DragonFly virtual storage accelerators have been around for close to two years. Back in April 2011, StorageReview had some hands-on time with the DragonFly storage accelerator. In August...
5 by Ganesh T S on 1/3/2013
Plextor Updates The Firmware on M5 Pro: Promises Increased Performance, We Test It
Plextor released their M5 Pro SSD in August, which we reviewed shortly after the release. Now nearly four months later, Plextor has released an updated firmware (v1.02) for the...
46 by Kristian Vättö on 12/10/2012
OCZ Agility 4 (256GB) Review
For the last few years, OCZ's consumer SSD lineup has primarily consisted of two models: Vertex and Agility. The history of these two goes all the way back to...
40 by Kristian Vättö on 9/1/2012
Plextor M5 Pro (256GB) Review
Plextor has been making steady progress in becoming a real player in the SSD market. As we saw with the M3 Pro, they have a firmware team capable of...
36 by Kristian Vättö on 8/31/2012
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
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
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
OCZ Demonstrates Native PCIe SSDs: Z-Drive R5 in PCIe, mini-PCIe and 2.5" Form Factors
OCZ showed us its Kilimanjaro based Z-Drive R5 (native PCIe controller jointly developed with Marvell) running a 4KB random write test at Computex today. The drive was pushing as...
14 by Anand Lal Shimpi on 6/5/2012
Corsair Performance Series Pro (256GB) Review
Shortly after the Plextor M3 review went live, I received numerous emails asking us to review Corsair's Performance Series Pro. Your voice was heard and we went and asked...
41 by Kristian Vättö on 5/14/2012
The Plextor M3 (256GB) Review
Plextor as a brand is probably a new acquaintance for most people and I have to admit that I had not heard of Plextor until a couple of months...
114 by Kristian Vättö on 4/5/2012
Marvell's 3rd Generation 88SS9187 SSD Controller
Today Marvell is announcing its third generation SSD controller with the 88SS9187. Its predecessor, the 88SS9174 was used in many drives including Crucial's m4 and Intel's SSD 510. The...
23 by Anand Lal Shimpi on 3/14/2012
OCZ & Marvell Create Native PCIe SSD Controller, Z-Drive R5 to Debut Next Week
Just a couple of months after launching its first SATA based SSD controller developed in-house, OCZ is announcing a PCIe based SSD controller co-developed with Marvell. The controller is...
22 by Anand Lal Shimpi on 1/6/2012
Corsair Gives Marvell Another Try With Performance Pro SSD
Corsair is no stranger to Marvell based SSDs. Prior to its current flagship Force 3 and Force GT (SF-2281 based) SSDs, Corsair released the Performance 3 Series using Marvell...
10 by Anand Lal Shimpi on 11/10/2011
Nixeus Fusion XS Brings Marvell into the DMA Market
The DMA (Digital Media Adapter) aka media streamer market has been dominated by Sigma Designs, Realtek and of late, the Intel CE 4xxx series. The low end market is...
15 by Ganesh T S on 3/11/2011