Storage - Page 111
All the latest storage news, with everything related to new solid-state drives (SSDs), hard drives & plenty more - Page 111.
Just a few 240GB Vertex LE 240GB Drives Remaining at 249.99 USD
With all of the X79 news coming out on the 14th you may have missed the Revisiting the Legend: OCZ Vertex LE article that was posted. Our friends at MyDigitalDiscount.com uncovered a batch of drives in a warehouse and are blowing them out.
TweakTown has teamed up with My Digital Discount to offer a coupon code to get the legend for right around $1 per GB on the 240GB model. The coupon code, TT30off240LE is still in effect but only a few drives remain.
The Vertex LE is one of the fastest SATA II drives ever released and was ahead of it's time. It featured 3Xnm flash with 15K P/E cycles, a rarity these days in a world filled with 25nm flash rated at just 5K P/E cycles. After the coupon you can't find a better deal and the 285MB/s read, 270MB/s write speed is pretty nice too:)
Continue reading: Just a few 240GB Vertex LE 240GB Drives Remaining at 249.99 USD (full post)
The next, Next Gen of WarpDrive Pictured, WarpCache?
The WarpDrive has been a really good product for LSI and datacenter owners. The product has been so successful the successor has already been announced and production is ramping up quickly for a Q4 or early Q1 launch. That information has been public for the last month or so, released at IDF.
LSI is already working on an even newer product, one that they don't really want to talk too much about. So without an official name I'm going to designate this one WarpCache.
The LSI MegaRAID controllers have two distinct add-ons. We've covered them both in the past, FastPath, an IOPS accelerator and CacheCade, an HDD cache system fed by solid state drives. By placing an SSD or an array of SSDs in front of the HDDs to hold hot data the data can be read at the pace of SSDs. This also reduces wear on the traditional platter drives as frequently read data is pulled from the much faster SSD cache.With CacheCade 2.0 the SSD cache can write incoming data as well, a large bonus for write intensive apps.
Continue reading: The next, Next Gen of WarpDrive Pictured, WarpCache? (full post)
Newegg currently offering 15-percent discount on any OCZ SSD
Newegg are currently running a special on OCZ SSD drives, all you need is the coupon code "BLKNOVSSD". The specials are pretty good and include both the Vertex 3 and Agility 3 drives from OCZ. The specials include all three drive sizes, 60, 120 and 240GB.
Vertex 3 in 60, 120 and 240GB have original prices of $109, $190 and $475, respectively. With the 15-percent off and mail-in rebate, this brings the pricing down to $73, $142 and $374 for the 60, 120, and 240GB drives, respectively. For the Agility 3 drives, we see the same discount apply, 60, 120, 240GB drives with original prices of $107, $171 and $360, respectively, taken down to $71, $125, and $276, respectively, after the 15-percent off and mail-in rebate.
These are some seriously nice prices for the SSD drives from OCZ and would make quite the Christmas present if Mrs TweakTown reader is watching. Get one and stuff it into your partners' stocking for some Christmas morning SSD surprise!
Continue reading: Newegg currently offering 15-percent discount on any OCZ SSD (full post)
SandForce Displays Toshiba 24nm MLC Flash at AIS
Toshiba 24nm MLC flash isn't exactly breaking news, SandForce had this drive on display at IDF 2011. We did learn today that Toshiba's 24nm flash should cost less than IMFT 25nm flash so all of those SandForce SF-2281 controlled drives could become a little cheaper in 2012.
We still are scratching our heads on what performance will be like but Toshiba's 3Xnm flash with the 2281 is the current speed king on the market today. Drives like the OCZ Technology MaxIOPS, Patriot Wildfire and OWC Mercury Extreme Pro 6G are just a few examples that use Toshiba flash already.
Also on display at AIS 2011 were several non-standard form factors produced by companies that are supplied with SandForce controllers.
Continue reading: SandForce Displays Toshiba 24nm MLC Flash at AIS (full post)
OCZ unleash RevoDrive 3 Max IOPS Edition, capable of 1900MB/sec reads
Forget just wanting my two front teeth for Christmas, this puppy has just gone straight to the top. All I want for Christmas is OCZ's newly announced RevoDrive 3 Max IOPS solid state drive. This devil combines a proven cutting-edge PCI Express-based architecture and OCZ proprietary Virtualized Controller Architecture (VCA) 2.0 flash virtualization layer with premium NAND flash components that deliver exceptional 4KB random write performance of up to 245,000 IOPS, as well as increased transfer rates of 1900MB/sec reads and 1725MB/sec writes.
Daryl Lang, VP of Product Management for OCZ Technology Group says:
Continue reading: OCZ unleash RevoDrive 3 Max IOPS Edition, capable of 1900MB/sec reads (full post)
Buffalo readies up its BDXL supporting portable Blu-ray writer
Buffalo is now preparing shipments of its BDXL-format supporting "BRXL-PCW6U2-BK" external/portable Blu-ray writer.
The unit connects via USB 2.0 and includes support for both 3-layer (100GB) and 4-layer (128GB) BDXL discs. The drive runs measurements of 145 x 19 x 153 mm with a weight of 340 grams. It will ship with a couple built-in USB cables whereby one acts as the data path and the other for power.
As for write speeds, the drive can do up to 4x for BDXL media, 6x for BD-R (single- and dual-layer), 2x for BD-RE, 8x for DVD-R/+R/+RW, 6x for DVD-R DL/+R DL/-RW, 5x for DVD-RAM, 24x for CD-R and 16x for CD-RW.
Continue reading: Buffalo readies up its BDXL supporting portable Blu-ray writer (full post)
Seagate to intro 1TB platters spinning at 7,200 RPM
Seagate currently have their GoFlex external drives using the 1TB platter technology, but they feature 5400 RPM and are not as fast as the usual 7200 RPM drives. But, with 7200 RPM drives, there's usually less GB per platter. Seagate don't want this, and neither do we.
Seagate will now intro a bunch of new drives sporting the 7200 RPM spindle rate, with 1TB platters on a SATA 6Gbps interface. The new drives will have a model number ending in M00x which represents the new drive and its 7200 RPM speed.
Tech wise, platter capacity plays quite a big role in just how much storage a hard drive can hold, but it can also impact performance. Areal density is key, which is a measurement of how many bits are squeezed into each square inch. The more bits per square inch, the more data passes under the drive head with each revolution of the platter.
Continue reading: Seagate to intro 1TB platters spinning at 7,200 RPM (full post)
Got an Intel SSD? Grab the new Toolbox 3.0 software now!
Intel has just released version 3.0 of its "SSD Toolbox" which sports an entirely new UI and rolls in a ton of new features.
The management and diagnostics of your Intel based SSD with this tool is now about as complete as could be with SMART status, Summary Drive Health and Estimated Life Remaining bars, used/unused capacity pie charts, diagnostics, system information summary and contextual help that integrates one-click same-page help pointers.
With SSDS typically having a limited rewrite cycle count (the amount of times data can be rewritten onto its NAND cells before it's game over and the SSD becomes a doorstep), while the cycle count equates to many, many years of use even for the all day every day user, it's still nice to have peace of mind about the rewrite cycle status.
Continue reading: Got an Intel SSD? Grab the new Toolbox 3.0 software now! (full post)
Corsair Force Series SSD goes through some life testing
For those of you who love your SSDs like me, you'll enjoy an interesting blog piece from Corsair. It's done by long time Corsair forum member Rafael Jaimes III, or by his forum name "Synbios". He sent Corsair some documentation of SSD life testing utilizing Corsair's Force F40-A SSDs.
The submission is quite long, so I won't go into it too much (and to avoid spoilers from the results), but it goes into a very lengthy discussion about the lifespan and the general users questions on how long it will be. Because SSDs are a very new technology when compared to the now ageing mechanical platter-based tech, the number of failures of SSDs are currently quite low. But because they haven't been around as long as their competition, its hard to get a handle on what type of return rate they have.
Synbios uses a variety of tools for his testing, and its not just some simple benchmarks that he runs. The time and effort that this man has put into the testing should really be enjoyed by a thorough read of his work. I actually looked forward to seeing more of his work.
Continue reading: Corsair Force Series SSD goes through some life testing (full post)
Sharkoon adds Gigabit Ethernet to QuickPort Pro HDD Dock
You'd think there's only so much that can be done with a desktop HDD docking station and if anyone has managed to provide a feature filled line of them that covers all bases, it's Sharkoon with their QuickPort series. But the company has just found reason to introduce yet another into its QuickPort family - the QuickPort Pro LAN Giga HDD/SSD Docking Station.
As the model name hints, the primary feature of this particular model launched today is its Gigabit ethernet port allowing it to be tied directly into a network for easy sharing between multiple computers. Of course, Sharkoon has included alternative choices for connectivity as well, with both USB 2.0 and eSATA interfaces at its base (no doubt the next QuickPort will be both Gigabit and USB 3.0 equipped).
As per previous iterations of the QuickPort family of docking stations, the LAN Giga supports both 2.5 and 3.5-inch sized SSDs/HDDs. There's also a couple USB 2.0 ports easily accessible on the front of the base for plugging in additional flash drives or other storage devices and there's an SD/MMS/MS card reader resident as well.
Continue reading: Sharkoon adds Gigabit Ethernet to QuickPort Pro HDD Dock (full post)