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...
OCZ Vertex 3 MAX IOPS & Patriot Wildfire SSDs Reviewed
Not wanting to be completely married to Intel NAND production, OCZ wanted to introduce a version of the Vertex 3 that used 32nm Toshiba Toggle NAND - similar to...
114 by Anand Lal Shimpi on 6/23/2011This Just In: OCZ's Vertex 3 MAX IOPS 120GB, The New Mid-Range King?
I mentioned in our Mid-Range SSD Roundup that most SSD vendors like sampling the best balance of capacity/performance when it comes to SSD review samples. For the SandForce SF-2281...
112 by Anand Lal Shimpi on 6/15/2011Intel SSD 710 and 720 Series Specifications Revealed
In our Intel roadmap article published in May, we shortly previewed Intel's upcoming 700 Series SSDs. Back then there wasn't much to talk about as very few specs were...
21 by Kristian Vättö on 6/15/2011The 2011 Mid-Range SSD Roundup: 120GB Agility 3, Intel 510 and More Compared
A year ago whenever I'd request an SSD for review I'd usually get a 128GB drive built using 3x nm 4GB 2-bit MLC NAND die. These days the standard...
68 by Anand Lal Shimpi on 6/7/2011Micron's P320h: A Custom Controller Native PCIe SSD in 350/700GB Capacities
SSDs are beginning to challenge conventional drive form factors in a major way. On the consumer side we're seeing more systems use new form factors for SSDs, enabled by...
22 by Anand Lal Shimpi on 6/2/2011Kingston's HyperX SandForce SSD
Kingston is a pretty big player in the SSD space but mostly on the mainstream/value end of the spectrum. With a fairly conservative strategy we haven't seen Kingston be...
6 by Anand Lal Shimpi on 6/1/2011Computex 2011: Diskeeper ExpressCache Provides an Alternative to SSD Caching for OEMs
As we found out in our Z68 review, Intel's SRT (SSD Caching) is basically a software tool baked into Intel's RST driver - there's no real hardware requirement in...
14 by Anand Lal Shimpi on 5/31/2011The New Indilinx Everest SSD
OCZ acquired Indilinx not too long ago and today we're seeing the first new controller from the company since 2009. OCZ calls it the Everest Platform, and it's an...
11 by Anand Lal Shimpi on 5/31/2011Computex 2011: OCZ's RevoDrive Hybrid, HDD & SSD on PCIe Card
OCZ is feeling quite experimental these days as it has announced a hybrid RevoDrive. Take the new RevoDrive 3 and use it as a cache in front of a...
12 by Anand Lal Shimpi on 5/31/2011Computex 2011: OCZ Z-Drive R4 88, Eight SF-2281 Controllers in RAID-0
OCZ's consumer accessible PCIe SSD line is the RevoDrive, but if you're an enterprise customer and want a custom configuration OCZ will build you a Z-Drive. To show you...
13 by Anand Lal Shimpi on 5/31/2011Computex 2011: OCZ's RevoDrive 3 & RevoDrive 3 X2, Now With TRIM
There's a new PCIe SSD in town: the RevoDrive 3. Armed with two SF-2281 controllers and anywhere from 128 - 256GB of NAND (120/240GB capacities), the RevoDrive 3 is...
23 by Anand Lal Shimpi on 5/31/2011Computex 2011: SandForce mSATA Drives & No More Supercap
I haven't been to Computex since 2005. I felt that for a while there the show had lost some of its appeal. Motherboards alone weren't all that interesting and...
10 by Anand Lal Shimpi on 5/30/2011OCZ Agility 3 (240GB) Review
OCZ has been at the forefront of each generation of SandForce SSD release since the debut of the SF-1500 based Vertex Limited Edition. More recently the Vertex 3 was...
59 by Anand Lal Shimpi on 5/24/2011Z68 SSD Caching with Corsair's F40 SandForce SSD
I have to admit that Intel's Z68 launch was somewhat anti-climactic for me. It was the chipset we all wanted when Sandy Bridge first arrived, but now four months...
81 by Anand Lal Shimpi on 5/13/2011Intel Z68 Chipset & Smart Response Technology (SSD Caching) Review
The problem with Sandy Bridge was simple: if you wanted to use Intel's integrated graphics, you had to buy a motherboard based on an H-series chipset. Unfortunately, Intel's H-series...
106 by Anand Lal Shimpi on 5/11/2011OCZ Vertex 3 (240GB) Review
Three months ago we previewed the first client focused SF-2200 SSD: OCZ's Vertex 3. The 240GB sample OCZ sent for the preview was four firmware revisions older than what...
90 by Anand Lal Shimpi on 5/6/2011Intel’s Roadmap: Ivy Bridge, Panther Point, and SSDs
Last week, we told you about Sandy Bridge-E and X79 chipset. Today, we have a lot of interesting news about other Intel products, including a look at the Ivy...
74 by Kristian Vättö on 5/6/2011SanDisk-Toshiba Take Back The Crown With A Different Kind of NAND
After 11 years of partnership, Sandisk and Toshiba's timing could not have been better. Just seven days after losing the NAND crown to Intel and Micron (IMFT) they announce...
35 by Jason Inofuentes on 5/5/2011OWC Mercury Extreme Pro 6G SSD Review (120GB)
I still don't get how OWC managed to beat OCZ to market last year with the Mercury Extreme SSD. The Vertex LE was supposed to be the first SF-1500...
44 by Anand Lal Shimpi on 5/5/2011Apple Now Using Samsung SSDs in MacBook Air?
Last October after months of waiting, Apple finally refreshed their MacBook Air lineup, which we reviewed shortly after launch. The update introduced a new 11.6” form factor along with...
33 by Kristian Vättö on 4/15/2011