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OCZ Boosts Vertex 4 SSD Performance with New Firmware; Launches 64GB Model
By HotHardware, published 05-07-2012
OCZ today is throwing Vertex 4 solid state drive (SSD) owners a bone with release candidate firmware v1.4RC, which "dramatically improves" performance, the company said. And by that, OCZ means it nearly doubles the sequential write performance for lower capacity models and boosts sequential read performance at low queue depths. General performance...
Deal of the week: Uber-cheap SSDs and other goodness
By TechReport, published 17-12-2011
There's still enough time to pack in a little online shopping before Christmas, and e-tailers are clearly providing some encouragement. This week, Newegg is offering a bonanza of bargains on OCZ's SandForce SF-2218-powered Vertex 3 solid-state drives. As the kind folks at Slickdeals have pointed out, you can grab 60GB, 90GB, and 120GB Vertex 3 models at discounted prices by combining instant rebates, coupon codes, and mail-in rebates.If you enter the coupon code "HARDOCP1214D" on ...Read more...
In Depth: TechRadar's best gear of 2011
By TechRadar, published 16-12-2011
TechRadar's best gear of 2011Every year, we review hundreds of bits of hardware here at TechRadar, and every year the standard gets better and better. The phones get more advanced, the PCs get faster and the TVs get a picture quality we never though possible.Of course, it can be hard to follow all those reviews, especially when some products get so much hype, but turn out to be disappointing.Well, we say the best kit always rises to the top, and the list below is definitely the cream of the crop. Our experts selected the products that stood out far above the rest, either because of having top features, excellent quality, a bargain price or all of the above, so you can be sure that this is the best kit of 2011.Best LCD TV: Philips 46PFL9706HThis Philips set wins out for one very good reason...
Review: OCZ Octane 512GB
By TechRadar, published 14-12-2011
OverviewThe OCZ Octane 512GB offers high capacity, SATA 6Gbps performance, but at what price?So you want a high performance solid state drive? For goodness sake get something with a SandForce SSD controller. That's the prevailing wisdom the new OCZ Octane 512GB must dismantle if it's to succeed.SandForce's second generation SF-2000 family of controllers has been a big hit despite early concerns over stability issues. In fact, OCZ has itself used the SF-2281 in a number of drives including the OCZ Vertex 3 240GB and OCZ Agility 3 240GB. Plenty of other popular drives, including the Corsair Force 3 120GB, also pack SandForce technology.But choice is a fine thing, so we're pleased and impressed in equal measure to find OCZ has come up with something unique for the new OCZ Octane 512GB and ind...
Review: Samsung SSD 830 256GB
By TechRadar, published 12-02-2011
OverviewSamsung has taken the unprecedented move with its Samsung SSD 830 256GB of using its own individually created firmware, DRAM and NAND. Does that give it the edge?Samsung has been overshadowed a bit by the likes of Corsair, OCZ and Kingston in the high performance SSD market. The latter companies opted for the Sandforce controller in their drives and have hit perpetually impressive sequential read/write performance levels with each new generation, which makes them the go-to guys for enthusiast storage.It's not like Samsung is a newcomer to the market though; far from it. Its OEM dealings with industry giant Apple contribute to a 26% market share in SSDs across consumer and OEM sectors. The Korean powerhouse was also heavily involved in the early days of the SSD, providing reference ...
Review: Samsung SSD 830 256GB
By TechRadar, published 12-02-2011
OverviewSamsung has taken the unprecedented move with its Samsung SSD 830 256GB of using its own individually created firmware, DRAM and NAND. Does that give it the edge?Samsung has been overshadowed a bit by the likes of Corsair, OCZ and Kingston in the high performance SSD market. The latter companies opted for the Sandforce controller in their drives and have hit perpetually impressive sequential read/write performance levels with each new generation, which makes them the go-to guys for enthusiast storage.It's not like Samsung is a newcomer to the market though; far from it. Its OEM dealings with industry giant Apple contribute to a 26% market share in SSDs across consumer and OEM sectors. The Korean powerhouse was also heavily involved in the early days of the SSD, providing reference ...
A quick look at OCZ's 2.15 SSD firmware
By TechReport, published 11-02-2011
For months, we've heard reports of folks experiencing blue-screen-of-death errors when running solid-state drives based on SandForce's latest SF-2281 controller. This so-called BSOD bug appears to affect all drives based on the controller, although SandForce claims that only "isolated" hardware configurations pose problems. We discussed the issue in the 120-128GB SSD round-up we published back in September, and at the time, SandForce was optimistic about a new firmware revision undergoing testing in its labs.About a month later, that revision materialized in an OCZ 2.15 firmware update released to the general public. Tailored for OCZ's Vertex 3, Agility 3, ...Read more...
Review Roundup: This week's hottest reviews on TechRadar
By TechRadar, published 29-10-2011
This week's hottest reviews on TechRadarThis week's we've got a great batch of reviews for you as well as lots of hands on reviews including the new Motorola Atrix 2 and Nokia's new Lumina 800.In full reviews, tablets are also prevalent this week - we've got the rather fine new Samsung Galaxy Tab 8.9 as well as the Asus Eee Pad Slider review.And for camera fans, there's the super new Nikon J1. Read on to check out all this week's reviews from TechRadar.Samsung Galaxy Tab 8.9 reviewSamsung's attitude to the tablet market has been to throw so much mud at the Android wall that at least some of it sticks. It's got its Android 2.3 7-incher, the wonderful 10.1-inch flagship, the beautiful forthcoming 7.7-inch model and this here 8.9-inch masterpiece. By having all bases covered elegantly, Samsun...
OCZ firmware update battles SandForce BSOD bug
By TechReport, published 19-10-2011
When we concluded our recent SSD round-up, we ended up recommending a handful of SandForce-based drives based on their pack-leading performance and strong value proposition. However, we had to temper those recommendations with a word of caution about the so-called BSOD bug that strikes some systems seemingly at random. Now, OCZ has released a 2.15 firmware update for its Vertex 3, Agility 3, and Solid 3 SSDs that purportedly banishes the BSOD bug.According to the official release notes (PDF), the 2.15 firmware addresses BSOD errors associated with running the SSDs as OS drives. The firmware also deals with problems related to various sleep modes, and it purportedly eliminates stuttering that could have occurred after an error reading ...Read more...
AVADirect Custom Gaming PC Review
By MaximumPC, published 17-10-2011
AVA finds a way to mix performance and silence In our world, performance and silence go together about as well as Aliens and Predators. Each one has its appeal, but put them together, and you generally get a turd. That’s a fact AVADirect has set out to disprove with a PC apparently named by U.S. Army logistics command: Custom Gaming PC, Silent PC, Low-Noise Custom Computer System. Despite its funktastic name, the AVADirect PC doesn’t disappoint and seems capable of creating its own alternate reality where performance commingles harmoniously with peace and quiet. Sure, Puget System’s virtually silent Serenity Mini that we reviewed in our August issue was certainly fast with its 3.3GHz Core i5-2500K overclocked to 4.5GHz, but its Radeon HD 5750 didn’t have the ponies for heavy gaming...
HH Hot Deals of the Day: Alienware m11x, iGo Projector, OCZ SSD, Cisco Router
By HotHardware, published 29-09-2011
Our friends at LogicBuy have sent over another fresh batch of HOT deals for you all this morning. On the menu today, we have Alienware’s slick m11x gaming notebook, an iGo pocket projector, a great price on OCZ’s 120GB Vertex 2 SSD (less than $1 per GB!), and a Cisco / Linksys dual-band broadband router... 11.6" Alienware m11x...
In Depth: How to build the best PC for your needs
By TechRadar, published 25-09-2011
How to build a PCSystem builders are great and everything, but unless you emit static electricity or are terminally lazy, you should be thinking about building your own PC. Why? Because not only do you get the satisfaction of having crafted your machine from the ground up, growing and harvesting each component from the soil… or something like that. You also get full control over what goes in the chassis. And what the case will look like. System builders do a great job of delivering sensible packages of components at attractive price points, but building your own rig gives you full control. All the parts you need, none that you don't. And no extra expense to you. And that level of control's important. It's what being a PC enthusiast is all about. It's what elevates us above the hunched si...
Corsair Force GT 120GB SSD
By MaximumPC, published 09-08-2011
Corsair’s Force GT comes in a bright red chassis, which by Ork logic (in the Warhammer 40K universe) would make it the fastest SSD ever. So is it? The Force GT consists of a 6Gb/s SATA bus, SF-2281 controller, and 16 64Gb Micron 25nm synchronous NAND modules (as opposed to the eight 128Gb modules on the Patriot Wildfire). This is the same Micron NAND found in the 240GB OWC Mercury Extreme Pro 6G, except that drive had 128Gb modules instead of 64Gb. (Corsair is also shipping the Force 3, which bears the same relationship to the Force GT as OCZ’s Agility 3 bears to the Vertex 3—the Force 3 uses asynchronous NAND and is slightly slower and cheaper than the Force GT.) The Corsair Force GT uses Ork logic—the red ones go faster. In CrystalDiskMark and AS SSD’s sustained read tests, the...
Patriot Wildfire 120GB SSD Review
By MaximumPC, published 09-08-2011
This isn’t Patriot’s first rodeo. The company’s Torqx drive (reviewed September 2009) was one of the best Indilinx SSDs on the market for a while, and the Inferno (October 2010) was a perfectly cromulent first-gen SandForce drive, only lagging behind those SF-1200-based SSDs with specially tweaked “Max IOPS” firmware. The Wildfire (a name that actually seems like a step down from Inferno) is Patriot’s first SF-2281-based drive, and we put the 120GB version through its paces. The 120GB Wildfire SSD consists of an SF-2281 controller and eight 128Gb (that’s gigabits, not bytes) Toshiba 32nm NAND flash packages on a 6Gb/s SATA bus. In our tests, the Wildfire performed nearly as well as the OWC Mercury Extreme Pro 6G and OCZ’s Vertex 3, the two fastest SandForce drives we’ve t...
Review: Kingston HyperX 240GB SSD
By TechRadar, published 09-07-2011
There are two new drives in the HyperX range with 120GB and 240GB capacities, but the flagship 240GB is the one we're looking at here. Since these drives are aimed at the high performance end of the market, it makes sense that Kingston has teamed up with SandForce, and its new drives make use of the latest SF-2281 controllers. It may seem like Kingston has been a bit slow off the mark – the controller it's chosen has been around for a while – but if there's one thing Kingston is known for, its making bulletproof products. By working closely with SandForce and putting the drives through its own rigorous testing and qualification procedures, Kingston has tried to alleviate the notorious reliability issues that plague some SandForce controllers, hence the delayed release. Whatever Kingsto...
OWC Mercury Extreme Pro 6G 240GB Review
By MaximumPC, published 23-08-2011
Any fears we had that the OCZ Vertex 3’s speeds were due solely to some voodoo magic or secret deal with SandForce were unfounded. OWC’s Mercury Extreme Pro 6G—a product name that contains three too many buzzwords—goes toe to toe with the Vertex 3 in nearly every benchmark, and exceeds it in some. Like the Vertex 3, the Mercury Extreme Pro 6G (and why not tack on “Enhanced Premium Plus” while you’re at it, OWC?) utilizes 256GB of synchronous, 25nm NAND (Micron, in our review unit). As with other SandForce drives, 16GB are reserved for redundancy and overprovisioning; the rated capacity of the drive is 240GB. Unlike the Vertex 3, the Mercury Extreme Pro comes in a sparkly blue chassis. And that’s about the only difference. OWC markets the Mercury Extreme Pro 6G to Mac users,...
Review: Crucial M4 256GB
By TechRadar, published 19-08-2011
Hand on heart, you know that drives with the latest SandForce SF-2200 series controller are probably the quickest you can buy. Is there any point in looking elsewhere? Well, yes. Price and reliability also come into the equation. Enter the Crucial M4 from one of the biggest outfits in memory. The new M4 256GB is hardly a slouch thanks to 6Gbps SATA support and 415MB/s read and 260MB/s write ratings. Not long ago, those would have been absolutely spectacular numbers. Admittedly, not so much today, but then again the M4's input-output operations per second (IOPS) performance which is around the 40 to 50K mark is far from shabby and should make for strong real-world performance. As for what makes the new M4 tick, it sports a mildly reworked version of the older Crucial C300's Marvell 9174 con...
OCZ Agility 3 240GB Review
By MaximumPC, published 08-10-2011
OCZ already ships two drives with the blazing-fast SF-2281 controller—the Vertex 3 and the firmware-tweaked Max IOPS Vertex 3. So, why a third? Like its predecessors the Agility and Agility 2, the Agility 3 is OCZ’s “mainstream” SSD for this generation. So what distinguishes it from the Vertex 3, and is there any reason to buy it? Like other 240GB SandForce drives, the Agility 3 uses 256GB of NAND, with 16GB devoted to overprovisioning. Unlike the Vertex 3 and OWC’s Mercury Extreme Pro, which use synchronous NAND for their storage, the Agility 3 uses asynchronous, which is slower. Does the cheaper NAND in the OCZ Agility 3 make a difference? Yes and no. The good news is that the Agility’s use of cheaper NAND only becomes a problem in a few situations, most of which are unlikely...
Dream Machine 2011: How We Created the Best PC Ever
By MaximumPC, published 07-11-2011
Join us as we celebrate another year of Pure PC PowerIn an age of overly synthesized catchphrases ginned up by some suit to commercialize new soda pop or body spray, the term “pure PC power” was never intended to be marketing hype.Instead, it was conceived to describe our obsession with performance computers and it has withstood the test of time. Who would have known that 16 Dream Machines later, the pursuit of all-out computing power could still be viable?But that’s just what this year’s Dream Machine again proves: Despite pundits predicting the PC’s death many times over—speed still matters. For this year’s Dream Machine, we decided to build a rig that balances top-notch performance with the style and elegance of an exotic sports car. The overall package is well-behaved and...
Hardware Roundup
By HotHardware, published 25-06-2011
Video: EVGA GeForce GTX 580 3GB Review @ Hardware Canucks Motherboards and Chipsets: ASRock H61iCafe Intel H61 Motherboard Review @ ThinkComputers.org Processors: AMD's A8-3500M Fusion APU reviewed at TR Memory and Storage: OCZ Vertex 3 240GB SATA 6Gbit/s SSD Review @ Techgage G.Skill Sniper Series PC312800 Cas 7 Review @ OCC Legion Hardware...
Hardware Roundup
By HotHardware, published 24-06-2011
Video: TechwareLabs Review: Sapphire Radeon HD 6670 Ultimate Video Card Motherboards and Chipsets: ASUS M5A99X EVO (AMD 990X) Motherboard Review @ Tweaktown Processors: AMD Llano A8-3500M APU Review @ t-break Memory and Storage: Toshiba BDX5200 Review @ TechReviewSource.com OCZ Vertex 3 MAX IOPS @ PureOverclock OCZ Agility 3 SSD Tests @ Benchmark...
How to Build a Kick-Ass Gaming Rig for Under $700
By MaximumPC, published 20-06-2011
Build A Gaming Machine That Will Satisfy Your Cravings Without Breaking the Bank The thought of a gaming PC might conjure up images of decadent excess—a full-course meal of awesome that moves from an SSD consumé to a filet of Core i7 990X to quad-SLI under glass. While that’s certainly a feast worth aspiring to, it’s by no means the only fare that will give your gaming needs sustenance. And, no, we’re not suggesting that you ruin your health with an empty-calorie diet of console. In fact, unlike some corners of the gaming world, where there’s a fixed menu of parts, the PC offers loads of options that scale from opulent to economical. Our budget gaming rig is all about instant gratification: a way for you to fill your gaming hunger with a state of the art, speedy machine, capabl...
Review Roundup: This week's hottest reviews on TechRadar
By TechRadar, published 28-05-2011
This week, we've been pouring over one of the latest Honeycomb tablets to hit UK shores - the Acer Iconia Tab A500.Although more expensive than the iPad 2, it performed well in our tests - read the review for more. We've also spent time looking at a new Freeview HD and Blu-ray player as well as a new plasma from Panasonic. Read on for more on all the latest reviews we've posted this week on TechRadar. Acer Iconia Tab A500 Everyone in tech is talking about Android tablets. Which is the best? How good is Honeycomb? Can Android tablets overtake the iPad in sales? Have you actually seen one in the wild though? Thought not. Android tablet sales are off to a sluggish start to say the least but it's only a matter of time before things pick up. The Eee Pad Transformer is being held back by a lack ...
Review Roundup: This week's hottest reviews on TechRadar
By TechRadar, published 21-05-2011
This week's reviews include HTC's tablet as well as the new 2011 iMac lineup.The HTC Flyer was announced at Mobile World Congress when it impressed, but how does it stand up to the iPad 2 and plethora of Android 3.0 devices?The new 21.5 and 27-inch iMacs offer awesome power, but do they give you more power than you need? We've also looked at an epic 50-inch plasma TV from Panasonic and much more. Read on to find out more. HTC Flyer reviewNow that Android is a major tablet OS, with Android 3.0 appearing on the likes of the Motorola Xoom and Samsung Galaxy Tab 10.1V, HTC is still staying separate from the crowd. The most notable change from the norm is the 7-inch screen and the touchscreen stylus, known officially as the Magic Pen. It connects wirelessly to the Flyer, and enables you to anno...
Review: OCZ Vertex 3 240GB
By TechRadar, published 19-05-2011
Memory controllers are the super-model components of the SSD world, and OCZ is dropping the fastest consumer SandForce SATA 6Gbps controller on the planet with this the OCZ Vertex 3 240GB.SSD's are now so numerous, it's hard to believe that the desktop digital drive in its current NAND-based state hasn't been around that long. That said the enterprise sector has had the pleasure of using SSD's in various guises for a lot longer and solid state storage technology itself has been around longer than you might imagine.You can actually trace its lineage back to the 1950's. The first of what most people would recognise as a modern SSD appeared in 1978 when StorageTek brought out its drive. With a capacity of just 90MB it cost a staggering $8,800 per MB which limited its use to industrial, milita...
Review: Western Digital My Book Studio Edition II 6TB
By TechRadar, published 19-05-2011
Western Digital has never been slow in adding its largest capacity drives to its external drive family, and once it released the world's first internal 3TB drive, the Caviar Green 3TB, it was only a matter of time before it stuck it in an external enclosure. But what if 3TB of external storage isn't enough for you? Western Digital has the solution – stick two 3TB Caviar Greens in a box, RAID them up and voila, you have the latest addition to the external range of drives, the 6TB (yes, 6TB, you read that right) My Book Studio Edition II (WDH2Q60000). This range of drives comes under WD's Desktop for Mac banner. Although they work with Windows, there's a compromise for Windows users when it comes to one of the four interfaces WD used to access the My Book Studio Edition II's monstrous capa...
Review: Plextor PX-128M2S
By TechRadar, published 19-05-2011
Plextor is not normally a name you'd associate with super-fast solid state drives, but here it is with its first SATA 6Gbps drive, the Plextor PX-128M2S.Plextor's branched out from fast performing technology and internal and external optical drives into the non-optical storage market, with external hard drives and NAS devices. In early 2010 it launched its first generation of SSD drives, the PX-M1 series, dipping its toe into the crowded water of the SSD market. Now Plextor's back with its second generation of drives, the PX-M2 series, featuring uprated controllers and a SATA 6Gbps interface.There are three drives in the series: the 64GB model PX-64M2S, with sequential reads of 370MB/s and writes of 110MB/s; the drive we were sent to review, the 128GB PX-128M2S, with 420MB/s and 210MB/s se...
Gartner Predicts SSDs Will Cost $1 Per Gigabyte in 2012
By MaximumPC, published 05-11-2011
If you're not rocking a solid state drive in your system, it's probably because of price, are we right? And specifically, the cost per gigabyte can be hard to swallow when mechanical hard drives offer such a superior value, at least in terms of what you're paying. SSDs have a long way to go before they catch up to HDDs, but maybe they don't have to. Maybe SSDs just need to offer a better value before the mainstream market dives in en masse. That's what a new report from market research firm Gartner seems to suggest, PCWorld reports. According to Gartner, SSDs are primed to have a banner year in 2012 as prices trickle down into the $1 per gigabyte territory, at which point mainstream buyers will start to come around. Also helping the matter is the emerging tablet market. Most tablets use NA...
Buying Guide: Hard drive upgrade: what to buy and how to fit it
By TechRadar, published 05-07-2011
Hard drives - or non-volatile storage devices, to give them their proper name - have long been essential for computing, but you could be forgiven for thinking that the HDD's days are numbered. If you believe the cloud computing fundamentalists, we'll be living and working in a browser soon, accessing applications on a North American server farm and maybe storing data elsewhere. This style of computing has its advantages, but we're great fans of owning our own applications and controlling our own data. Given this philosophical position, we're going to need somewhere to store all our data and - despite technology's constant evolution - there's little better than a humble hard disk. The current market is split roughly in two. On one hand are the traditional mechanical hard disks, with spinnin...
AIDA64 v1.70 is released
By Bjorn3D, published 05-05-2011
Popular system benchmark and information tool, AIDA64, has released the latest version 1.70 today. Among the new features and improvements are as follows: LGA1155 B3 stepping motherboards support Preliminary support for AMD "Bulldozer" and "Llano" processors Intel 320, Intel 510, OCZ Vertex 3, Samsung PM81
OCZ Boosts Write Speed with New Vertex 3 Max IOPS Edition SSD
By MaximumPC, published 26-04-2011
OCZ Technology ditched the DRAM business in order to focus on the more profitable solid state drive sector, and that's exactly what they've done. Adding to an already crowded lineup of SSDs, OCZ today unveiled a new addition to its Vertex 3 SATA III Series, the Vertex 3 Max IOPS edition. Compared to other Vertex 3 drives, this latest entry brings higher write speeds to the table. "Following the successful launch of our Vertex 3 SATA III 6Gbps solid state drives we are pleased to introduce the new Max IOPS edition," said Ryan Petersen, CEO of OCZ Technology Group. "Vertex 3 Max IOPS drives increase random write performance, and are the ideal storage solution for applications that require high aggregate workloads and increased IO throughput." The Vertex 3 Max IOPS SSD is built around SandFor...
Origin Ups Overclocking Ante on EON17-S Laptops
By MaximumPC, published 25-04-2011
Everyone remembers that famous scene from Top Gun when Maverick, then Goose, says, "I feel the need...the need for speed!, but it's not too difficult to picture that same line being belted out from within Origin PC's labs. This boutique system vendor definitely has a need for speed, and to prove it, the company just announced the availability of overclocked processors in its EON17-S laptop line. Just any ol' overclock, either, but up to 4.5GHz with Turbo Boost. According to Origin, goosing the processor up to 4.5GHz qualifies the EON17-S line as the "fastest Origin laptops ever built on an Intel mobile plaform," as well as the highest mobile processor clockspeed in the world. That's righteous. The EON17-S is built around Intel's second generation Core processor technology, otherwise known ...
SSD Showdown: 4 Top Drives Reviewed
By MaximumPC, published 18-04-2011
Breaking the 250MB/s barrier with no moving parts If the automotive world progressed as fast as the computer industry, the old joke goes, we‘d all have $1,000 cars that get 400 miles to the gallon, never need maintenance, and crash catastrophic-ally every eight weeks for no reason. Ancient punch lines aside, comparing this year’s storage options to those of even half a decade ago would be like entering a Bugatti Type 35 in the Preakness Stakes. Half a decade ago, we were all still chasing the fastest mechanical hard drive. Today, solid-state drives are where the action is. And the progress made in SSDs over the past three years has been staggering. During our first SSD roundup in November 2008, the cream of the crop offered sustained-read and -write speeds on par with a mechanical dri...
OCZ Races to One Million SSDs Shipped
By MaximumPC, published 25-03-2011
You'd have a hard time arguing that any company is more active in the solid state drive space than OCZ. In addition to a dizzying number of SATA-based SSD lines, OCZ also offers SSD options in USB 3.0, HDSL (High Speed Data Link), and PCI-Express, covering just about all the bases. It's easy to believe, then, that OCZ just shipped its one millionth SSD, and as far as we know, they're the only company to have done so. "Solid state drives continue to represent a game-changing technology for both consumers and enterprise clients, and we are proud to achieve this milestone," said Ryan Petersen, CEO of OCZ. "But most of all, I wanted to take this opportunity to sincerely thank all of our loyal customers and partners, without whom this success would not be possible." Where things go from here wi...
OCZ buys Indilinx for $32 million
By TechReport, published 15-03-2011
OCZ's original Vertex solid-state drive can probably be credited for popularizing Indilinx's controller design. Turns out, OCZ liked the controller so much, it bought the company. Well, maybe that's not exactly how things went down. The deal is official, though. For a cool $32 million...
G.Skill Phoenix Pro 60GB SSD Review
By MaximumPC, published 03-11-2011
Another competent SandForce drive from a lesser-known manufacturer In our quest to cover the latest and greatest technology, we’re sometimes guilty of neglecting perfectly cromulent SKUs from smaller manufacturers. The Phoenix Pro series of solid-state drives is built on the same SandForce SF-1200 controller that powers top-of-the-line drives like OCZ’s Vertex 2 series, Patriot’s Inferno, and Corsair’s Force. With new controllers on the way, SandForce drives, especially at lower capacities, will become good candidates for first-time SSD adopters. With that in mind, we’ll take a look at G.Skill’s 60GB Phoenix Pro. Can a company better known for gaming RAM deliver a compelling SandForce drive at a decent price point? The chassis of an SSD is not worth remarking on, unless it’s ...
Intel SSD 510 Series SATA 6Gbps Solid State Drive Review
By HotHardware, published 03-04-2011
The solid state storage market continues to bristle with activity. Over the last couple of weeks, we have shown you two hot new SSDs from OCZ—the Vertex 3 and the Vertex 3 Pro--that offer stellar performance, thanks in no small part to their next-gen SandForce SF-2000 series controllers with native SATA 6Gbs support. And now, it...
OCZ Vertex 3 240GB SSD Review
By jonnyGuru, published 03-01-2011
Just about a year ago OCZ released their latest high performance SATA SSD, the Vertex 2 which was based on SandForce's latest controller. That drive was a huge success, surpassing the performance of its main competitor at the time, drives based on Indilinx controllers. Today we see the successor to that product launch, the Vertex 3 which runs on SandForce's latest controller and we have a 240GB sample on our test bench to find out how it compares to products currently on the market in a selection of real world and synthetic tests.
OCZ Technology Vertex 3 (SF-2200) Solid State Drive Preview
By jonnyGuru, published 03-01-2011
Yesterday we looked at the Corsair Performance 3, the first retail next generation Marvell - BKK2 controlled SSD to hit our lab. Today we have the Performance 3's, and for that matter every other new consumer SSD's main competitor in house; the OCZ Technology Vertex 3. OCZ Technology leads all other manufacturers in SSD development. The company has put forth a vast amount of resources in this market and even all but abandoned their memory products that put OCZ on the map. The payoff has been a near two year domination of the SSD market with sales that dwarf all other manufacturers. OCZ is at this point the SSD manufacturer in which all others strive to be.
12: HotHardware's Two and A Half Geeks Webcast - February 28, 2011
By HotHardware, published 28-02-2011
In this latest episode of Two and a Half Geeks, Dave, Iyaz, and Marco discuss the upcoming OCZ Vertex 3 solid state drive based on SandForce’s SF-2000 series controller, the AMD Fusion-based Lenovo ThinkPad X120e ultraportable, Apple’s new Sandy Bridge-based Macbook Pros with Intel’s new ThunderBolt interconnect technology,...
Intel Announces SSD 510 Series Drives With SATA 6Gbps Support
By HotHardware, published 28-02-2011
The solid state storage market continues to bristle with activity. Over the last couple of weeks, we have shown you a couple of hot new SSDs from OCZ—the Vertex 3 and the Vertex 3 Pro--that offer stellar performance thanks in no small part to their next-gen SandForce SF-2000 series controllers with native SATA 6Gbs support. Today,...
OCZ Officially Launches Vertex And Vertex 3 Pro SSDs
By HotHardware, published 27-02-2011
We just recently finished up our Vertex 3 SandForce SD-2000 based SSD preview, and now OCZ Technology is spilling the official beans on two of their newest solid state drive lines. The Vertex 3 and Vertex 3 Pro are the newest, and both feature SATA 6Gbps technology. The line is said to cater to consumers and enterprise users, and with the...
Deal of the week: Solid-state storage, budget audio, and Corsair cooling
By TechReport, published 25-02-2011
Hot on the heels of early previews of OCZ's next-gen Vertex 3 solid-state drive, Newegg has slashed the price of the existing Vertex 2. The 120GB drive usually sells for $270, but it's now available for $230. There's an additional $15 discount if you use the promo...
OCZ Vertex 3 SandForce SF-2000 Based SSD Preview
By HotHardware, published 24-02-2011
Just last week, we gave a glimpse of what OCZ has in store for the enterprise SSD market with our preview of the Vertex 3 Pro. Without giving away all of the juicy details, the Vertex 3 Pro essentially buried the competition and offered performance that was significantly better than any current-gen solid state drive. As we mentioned though,...
11: HotHardware's Two and A Half Geeks Webcast - February 18, 2011
By HotHardware, published 18-02-2011
In this episode of Two and a Half Geeks Dave Iyaz and Marco discuss the AMD's new Fusion low power processor in new retail-ready products the Boxee Box's latest updates NVIDIA's upcoming Kal-El quad-core Tegra mobile processor for tablets and handsets and OCZ's new blazing fast Vertex 3 Pro SSD. Show Notes: 00:50 - AMD Fusion Hits Retail:...
OCZ Vertex 3 Pro SandForce SF-2000 Based SSD Preview
By HotHardware, published 17-02-2011
OCZ Technologies’ Vertex 2 series of products are undeniably some of the more popular Solid State Drives currently on the market. Since their introduction, the drives have offered excellent performance, competitive prices (which have dropped considerably in recent weeks), and excellent support in terms of constant firmware updates and...
SandForce ships a million SF-1500 and SF-1200 SSD processors in first year
By SlashGear, published 15-02-2011
SandForce has announced that at the closing of the first full year that its SSD processors SF-1500 and SF-1200 have been on the market they have shipped a million units. These processors are in use in a wide range of SSD offerings from a variety of customers all around the country. SandForce says that manufacturers using its SSD processors have shipped an estimated 100 petabytes of NAND flash into the mainstream computing market. That is enough space to store two billion four-drawer filing cabinets full of text documents! That amount of storage could also store 5,000 years worth of continuously played DVD movies. That is a huge amount of storage. “We designed the SandForce SSD Processors to kickstart the SSD market by bringing enterprise-class performance and longevity to SSDs made wit...
Plextor M2 Series SSDs pack SATA 6Gb/s interface
By SlashGear, published 02-08-2011
Plextor has thrown open the doors to its M2 Series SSDs, offering SATA 6Gb/s support and up to 480MB/s sequential read rates. The drives – available in 64GB, 128GB and 256GB capacities – support the Windows 7 TRIM command, and have a 128MB DDR3 cache buffer and Marvel’s 88SS9174 controller. Sequential write speeds up to 330MB/s are supported, and Plextor throw in a copy of Acronis True Image for easily cloning your existing drive. The three drives – 64GB ($179.99), 128GB ($329.99) and 256GB ($699.99) – are available in the US today, and will drop in Europe come March 2011. Press Release: Plextor’s New SATA 6Gb/s Solid State Drive Available Now Plextor’s M2 Series SSD is one of the first to support SATA 6Gb/s and one of the fastest SSDs in the market...
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OCZ Synapse Cache 64 GB : (8/10)
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OCZ Summit : (8/10)
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OCZ StealthXStream2 600W : (8/10)
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