Storage
As Seagate ramps up shipments of its new heat assisted magnetic recording (HAMR)-based Mozaic 3+ hard drive platform, the company is both in the enviable position of shipping the first major new hard drive technology in a decade, and the much less enviable position of proving the reliability of the first major new hard drive technology in a decade. Due to HAMR's use of temporal heating with its platters, as well as all-new read/write heads, HAMR introduces multiple new changes at once that have raise questions about how reliable the technology will be. Looking to address these matters (and further promote their HAMR drives), Seagate has published a fresh blog post outlining the company's R&D efforts, and why the company expects their HAMR drives...
Western Digital Red Review: Are NAS-optimized HDDs Worth the Premium?
Western Digital (WD) introduced hard drives specifically targeted towards NAS systems under the Red branding last month. We had some initial coverage at launch time, where WD claimed a...
87 by Ganesh T S on 8/17/2012
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
Mediasonic Probox 8-bay 3.5" USB 3.0 / eSATA DAS Review
Prior to the rapid rise in popularity of Network Attached Storage (NAS) devices, consumers used to store large amounts of data on Direct Attached Storage (DAS) units. While USB...
48 by Ganesh T S 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
Netgear NV+ v2 and LaCie 2big NAS: A Second Look
Last November, we reviewed the Netgear NV+ v2 and came away quite satisfied with the price to performance ratio. However, we had some reservations about the absence of NFS...
8 by Ganesh T S on 7/18/2012
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
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