Samsung SSD SM825 Enterprise SSD Review

The Samsung SSD SM825 is an enterprise-grade SSD that's designed specifically for write-intensive data center workloads. Like all Samsung SSDs, the SM825 leverages all of Samsung's in-house expertise including their own eMLC NAND, 3-core controller and specialized firmware that helps to deliver 7,000 TBW, 100 times what's often seen in standard MLC NAND, while being more cost effective and delivering near-parity performance with SLC NAND. The net result is 4K random write steady state speeds we measured in excess of 9,800 IOPS and sequential 2MB write speeds topping 200MB/s.

January 6th, 2012 by Kevin OBrien

Toshiba MKx001GRZB Enterprise SSD Review

The Toshiba MKx001GRZB enterprise SSD was announced a year ago and went into full production in early-2011 and is Toshiba's flagship enterprise SSD; all of this seemingly done at a snail's pace when compared to the rapid churn of client-based SSDs. But in the enterprise, SSD storage buying decisions take time and aren't at all about the burst, or top line speed numbers - it's all about how the drive performs cranking away 24/7 for the many years it's expected to live in steady state. While the enterprise scales up SSD adoption, there's quite a battle in the trenches amongst manufacturers who are trying to solve a variety of problems, not the least of which is around SSD form factor and NAND configuration. For its part, Toshiba is leveraging a 6Gb/s SAS interface and 2.5" form factor for the MKx001GRZB, along with 32nm enterprise-grade SLC NAND to meet the needs of their clients.

December 13th, 2011 by Charles Jefferies

Intel SSD 710 Enterprise Review

The SSD 710 is Intel’s first enterprise-class SSD in quite some time – it’s been three years since they introduced their last one, the X-25E. Packed with more cost effective eMLC instead of SLC NAND, the SSD 710 gives enterprise buyers a mix of endurance and increased capacity at a more aggressive price point than SLC alternatives. To expand on our single 710 drive review, we take a look at the 710 in RAID 1 and RAID 5 configurations as well as steady state variations to find out how it performs in an enterprise environment.

December 8th, 2011 by Kevin OBrien

LSI MegaRAID CacheCade Pro 2.0 Review

LSI's line of MegaRAID RAID cards have tremendous market share for good reason, they're looked at by many as the de facto standard thanks to solid hardware and a fantastic software stack. Of course LSI's MegaRAID cards are capable of more than just tying together drives, their CacheCade Pro 2.0 add-on leverages the speed benefit of SSDs as cache pools for a larger capacity hard disk array.

September 23rd, 2011 by Kevin OBrien

Intel SSD 710 Series Review (200GB)

At IDF last week Intel launched their new enterprise line of SSDs, the 710 Series. The SSD 710 is Intel's first enterprise SSD in quite a while, the previous generation X25-E has been in the market for nearly three years. Over that span of time, a lot has changed in the enterprise space and those changes are reflected in the SSD 710. The most noticeable being the move from SLC NAND in the X25-E to 25nm MLC NAND with high endurance technology in the SSD 710 to drive down price and increase capacity. Other more subtle changes have taken place as well, including firmware optimized for endurance and an option for IT managers to modify the amount of over provisioning on the drives.

May 4th, 2011 by Kevin OBrien

Micron RealSSD P300 Review (100GB)

In August of last year, Micron announced the enterprise grade RealSSD P300. The P300 was the first enterprise SSD to market featuring the speedy SATA 6Gb/s interface delivering steady state IOPS up to 44,000 reads and 16,000 writes and throughput speeds of 360MB/s read and 275MB/s write. The P300 is powered by a Marvell 9174-family processor, high-endurance Micron 34nm SLC NAND and proprietary firmware. With lifetime data writes measuring in petabytes, this enterprise SSD is designed for the toughest workloads busnesses can create.

November 29th, 2010 by Dustin Sklavos

Viking Modular Enterprise 2.5" SSD Review

Viking Modular makes a variety of SSDs for enterprise users, based on the powerful SF-1500 controller form SandForce. We recently reviewed Viking Modular's unique SATADIMM SSD and found it very appealing, so there's little reason to doubt that we'll enjoy their 2.5" enterprise SSD; essentially the same specs as the SATADIMM, just in a more conventional form factor.

November 17th, 2010 by Dustin Sklavos

Viking Modular SATADIMM Review

An aspect of solid state drives that is being explored more recently is the number of form factors into which you can fit them. While mechanical hard disks have a very specific set of dimensions they need to fit into, SSDs have no such problems. The 2.5” SSDs that we get today are really only in that form factor because that's what our machines have largely standardized to, but as Apple's recent MacBook Air refresh has proven, you can fit an SSD pretty much anywhere these days. So it is with Viking Modular's new SATADIMM SSD drive.

January 27th, 2012 by Kevin OBrien