Introduction

We have talked a lot about upcoming next generation solid state drives, but now it is time to quit talking and start benching. While everyone else is out running around looking for their next big news story, I have been tucked in my hotel room as if it was a satellite office. So here I am; shorts, sandals, T-shirt and the new RunCore Pro V (Five).

The RunCore Pro V is the company's upcoming enthusiast class solid state drive that pairs a SandForce 1500 enterprise controller with consumer MLC flash memory. If you are a frequent reader here at TweakTown, you already know that multi-level cell (MLC) flash costs less than single-level cell (SLC) flash. Most consumer SSDs use MLC flash since this allows manufacturers to reduce the cost of their SSDs.

SandForce is taking a two tier approach with their controllers. To be honest, we still do not have a lot of information about the SandForce 1200 and 1500 or what makes them different. We do know that the SandForce 1200 is designed for the consumer market and uses MLC flash. The SandForce 1500 is an enterprise controller that is capable of using SLC or MLC flash. So far we have only heard of two companies looking to match the SF 1500 with MLC memory.

As you can imagine this early in the game, we don't have retail product box images or exact pricing information. What we do know is that RunCore's Pro V is going to cost more than current Indilinx Barefoot based Pro IV drives, but we should not see the price double.

Today's preview is going to be down and dirty just like we like our women and Martinis. As you can see from the image above, we were not in our normal test location, but the workstation has been flown to Las Vegas just for this test.