SSDs
Western Digital expanded its WD Blue NVMe family of budget SSDs this week with the introduction of the the WD Blue SN5000 series, an updated lineup of SSDs that, among other things, adds a 4 TB model. Being budget drives, the SN5000 series is not going to be a performance monster, but their combination of capacity, reliability, and relatively low price could make them popular both among casual buyers and among enthusiasts looking for relatively cheap bulk solid-state storage. Western Digital's WD Blue SN500 NVMe drives come in an M.2-2280 form-factor and are based around an in-house WD controller (the company rarely discloses their codenames these days). WD's controller is a 4 channel, DRAMless design, which is what we typically see for budget and mainstream...
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HighPoint's RocketU 1144A PCIe x4 USB 3.0 Controller: A Big Back-end
Most USB 3.0 controller cards available on the market today utilize the PCIe x1 interface. With a maximum theoretical bandwidth of 5Gbps, it is possible that these controllers...
40 by Zach Throckmorton on 8/30/2011_carousel.png)
Corsair Releases 90GB Force Series 3 and Force Series GT SSDs
Corsair just released two new 90GB SSDs: Force 3 and Force GT. Both drives were released a while ago, this update just adds the 90GB model. Corsair claims up...
5 by Kristian Vättö on 8/18/2011
Intel SSD 320 Firmware Posted, Addresses Bad Context 13x Error
How about that for turnaround time? Just two days ago Intel announced that it had found the root cause of the power cycle bug that could leave your SSD...
14 by Anand Lal Shimpi on 8/17/2011
Samsung Series 7 GAMER to use Diskeeper's ExpressCache
With its Z68 chipset Intel introduced SSD caching (Smart Response Technology), a feature that would allow you to use an ultra small SSD as a read/write cache in front...
9 by Anand Lal Shimpi on 8/17/2011
Meet the 6Gbps Samsung SSD 830: The Consumer PM830
Last week Samsung announced its PM830, its first SSD with support for 6Gbps SATA. Although the PM830 is shipping to OEMs today, it won't be available directly to consumers...
22 by Anand Lal Shimpi on 8/17/2011
Intel Testing Firmware Fix for SSD 320 8MB Power Bug
Not too long ago Intel officially recognized that its SSD 320 is impacted by a bug that results in the drive's capacity being limited to 8MB. Today Intel announced...
14 by Anand Lal Shimpi on 8/15/2011
Two New SATA Specs: SATA Express & µSSD
The SATA IO working group announced one new spec and that it has begun work on another: µSSD and SATA Express, respectively. These two specs span the gamut from...
15 by Anand Lal Shimpi on 8/11/2011
The SandForce Roundup: Corsair, Kingston, Patriot, OCZ, OWC & MemoRight SSDs Compared
It's a depressing time to be covering the consumer SSD market. Although performance is higher than it has ever been, we're still seeing far too many compatibility and reliability...
90 by Anand Lal Shimpi on 8/11/2011
Samsung Announces PM830, Its First 6Gbps SSD with up to 512GB Capacities
With each subsequent generation, Samsung's SSDs have been getting noticeably better. Two years ago its drives were unrecommendable, but just this year we met the Samsung SSD 470. While...
4 by Anand Lal Shimpi on 8/10/2011
OCZ Releases Z-Drive R4 PCIe SSD
OCZ has updated their enterprise Z-Drive lineup with new fourth-generation R4 PCIe SSD. OCZ had a prototype of this SSD on display at Computex (our article). R4 adapts SandForce's...
7 by Kristian Vättö on 8/3/2011
SanDisk SSDs Coming To Your PC
The SSD market gets bigger and bigger and now one of the big guns in Flash memory is stepping into the game. Having previously primarily released OEM SSD products...
3 by Jason Inofuentes on 7/27/2011
2011 MacBook Air SSD Features the Same Controller as Samsung 470
Like we suspected in April, the Samsung SSD found in some 2010 and 2011 MacBook Airs is indeed using the same controller as Samsung 470 series. The controller carries...
0 by Kristian Vättö on 7/27/2011
It's Also the Summer of Storage: Patriot Wildfire SSD Giveaway
What's this - another contest during our Summer of Honeycomb giveaway? Indeed it is. We write about SSDs quite frequently here at AnandTech so it's about time that we...
3147 by Anand Lal Shimpi on 7/11/2011
OCZ RevoDrive 3 X2 (480GB) Preview: 200K IOPS & 1.5GB/s for $1699?
Although consumer SSDs are far from a mature technology, PCIe SSDs are even further behind on the growth curve. The upside is huge. As SandForce has already demonstrated with...
38 by Anand Lal Shimpi on 6/28/2011
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 6/23/2011
This 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 6/15/2011
Intel 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 6/15/2011
The 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 6/7/2011
Micron'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 6/2/2011
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