February 6th, 2012 by Kevin OBrien
Intel SSD 520 Review
The Intel SSD 520, code name Cherryville, is the latest consumer SSD offering from Intel which breaks a tremendous amount of new ground for the company and the SSD industry at large. The big highlight is that Intel has transitioned to a SandForce processor in the SSD 520, away from the Marvell processor used in the SSD 510. Intel claims the SSD 520 to be their fastest SSD to date and there's little reason to doubt them. With the highest quality 25nm IMFT NAND available and the speedy SandForce processor combined, the SATA 6Gb/s SSD 520 cranks out quoted sequential read speeds of 550 MB/s and writes of 520 MB/s.
February 6th, 2012 by Kevin OBrien
Intel SSD 520 RAID Review
We've already looked at the Intel SSD 520 a few different ways in our client SSD 520 review and enterprise SSD 520 review. Additionally though, with the superb performance and Intel's reputation for SSD reliability, there's potential for the SSD 520 to be offered by notebook and desktop OEMs as a performance upgrade for buyers configuring those systems. Users may also evaluate the Intel SSD 520 for RAID deployments, with the goal of leveraging speed and/or redundancy. To that end, in this review we're working with the 240GB SSD 520 in several client-focused scenarios including single drive, RAID0 with two Intel 520s, RAID0 with three 520s and RAID5 with three 520s.
February 1st, 2012 by Kevin OBrien
Crucial m4 SSD RAID Review
The Crucial m4 SSDs have been on the market nine months, and have built a good track record around mainstream value and reliability in that time. Crucial has been great about continuing to enhance their line of m4 SSDs with firmware updates, a key advantage thanks to using their own NAND and extensive engineering team. While one update has been for an unforeseen stability problem, another has tuned the m4 for even better performance across all capacities as seen in our updated 256GB m4 review. The overall quality of the drives and support from Crucial then make the m4 platform a good candidate for RAID use, for those looking to stretch out impressive performance with a reliable backbone.
February 1st, 2012 by Kevin OBrien
Corsair Vengeance DDR3 RAM Disk Review
Just as all hard drives and SSDs are not created equal, neither is RAM, as we're finding in our expanding coverage of traditional DRAM used in a RAM disk scenario. Corsair's Vengeance DDR3 RAM kit is part of Corsair's quad channel high-performance line of RAM, featuring PC3-12800 (1600MHz) speed rating and 9-9-9-24 latency timings, aimed squarely at overclockers and performance enthusiasts.
January 31st, 2012 by Kevin OBrien
OCZ Octane SSD 128GB/512GB Review (Firmware v1.13)
OCZ updated the firmware on their Indilinx-powered Octane SSD to v1.13 last week, touting significant increases in random 4K write performance. On the lower capacity models the gains are quoted to jump over 100%, with advertised speeds increasing from 7,700 IOPS to 18,000 IOPs. Percentage gains taper off as capacity climbs, with the 512GB model getting bumped from 16,000 IOPS to 26,000 IOPS. The firmware release also likely addresses minor compatibility and stability issues.
January 25th, 2012 by Kevin OBrien
Patriot Memory Viper Xtreme Division 4 DDR3 RAM Disk Review
When we think about performance storage in the consumer space, most of us skip quickly to the enthusiast-grade SSDs, and for most usage scenarios, that makes sense. But there are cases when even the fastest SSDs don't provide enough throughput - enter RAM disks. Storage devices built around volatile RAM have been in use for some time, but with RAM getting both faster and less expensive, there's an increasingly viable case to be made for using RAM as a semi-permanent storage solution. In this case, we take a look at Patriot Memory's Viper XTreme Division 4 RAM as used in a RAM disk scenario.
January 23rd, 2012 by Kevin OBrien
Western Digital My Book Live Duo Review
At the beginning of this month Western Digital announced the My Book Live Duo, a two bay version of their popular My Book Live. When we reviewed the original My Book Live, we raved about its simple setup, which includes bypassing the need to alter any router settings. For the home user, and even SMB, that's a nice touch. We also love WD's mobile apps, which continue to get updated to make access to files on the go fast and easy, especially for storage-constrained tablets and other mobile devices. The only thing we didn't really like was the single drive risk - enter the My Book Live Duo, a two bay unit that comes pre-configured in 4TB and 6TB options.
January 6th, 2012 by Andrew Baxter
Netgear N900 (WNDR4500) Review
While generally not considered part of the storage ecosystem, networking gear plays a key role in transporting data from device to device. In this case we're taking a look at Netgear's latest high-performance router offering, the N900 (WNDR4500). The N900 offers all the wired and wireless standards, including 802.11 b/g/n on the 2.4 GHz spectrum and 802.11 a/n on the 5.0 GHz spectrum, which incidentally has had its range increased this time around. It also offers features like wireless printer sharing, and ReadyShare USB storage access, which can deliver HD video streams to wired or wireless media streamers around the house.
January 5th, 2012 by Kevin OBrien
Samsung SSD 830 RAID Review
When we completed our review of the Samsung SSD 830 in September, we praised the SSD for being built entirely in-house, which includes key components like the NAND, processor, cache RAM and firmware. Being a home grown creation generally means to better host system compatibility and better/faster support when issues arise. But SSDs need to perform as well, and the SSD 830 definitely had some bright spots, like posting the best deep queue depth 4K reads of any 2.5" SATA client SSD we've tested. The SSD 830 also delivered excellent write latency scores and very low idle power consumption. Even better then to combine two 256GB Samsung SSD 830's to see what kind of scores the drives can post when configured for performance in RAID0.
December 29th, 2011 by Kevin OBrien
Lenovo ThinkPad USB 3.0 Secure Hard Drive Review
Lenovo has made versions of their secure external hard drives for a while, we reviewed their eSATA version about a year ago. This time we're looking at the USB 3.0 enabled hard drive, available in capacities of 500GB and 750GB. The new USB 3.0 drives are highlighted by the same security - a ten digital number pad on the front of the enclosure and 256-bit AES XTS hardware encryption running in the background. Couple the security with the fact that the drive requires no installed software and it's built with legendary ThinkPad quality and the drive looks pretty compelling.
