The StorageReview.com review database offers in-depth analysis and comparison of the latest storage products. The latest HDD reviews (hard disk drive), SSD reviews (solid state drive), external storage reviews and related accessories are listed below.
January 31st, 2013 by Lyle Smith
Toshiba THNSNS SSD Review (HDTS112XZSWA 120GB Upgrade Kit)
Toshiba is a well-known name in the storage industry and they have produced quality SSDs for the enterprise and OEM market. However, they have been very quiet on the retail consumer front. That being the case, it was nice surprise when Toshiba revealed its first venture into the consumer market with an SSD upgrade kit for PCs, allowing end-users to easily migrate from hard disk drives to an SSD-based system. Each upgrade package comes with all of the tools needed to upgrade any desktop or notebook PC including a USB data migration cable and NTI Echo2 cloning software. Of course there's a Toshiba THNSNS SSD inside as well, which runs a SandForce controller and Toshiba NAND to deliver read and write performance of 557MB/s and 526MB/s respectively.
January 30th, 2013 by Doug Crowthers
Plextor M5M mSATA SSD Review
Plextor recently announced the release of the M5M mSATA SSD designed specifically for Ultrabooks. The drive offers an mSATA form factor with SATA 6.0Gbps interface, Marvell 88SS9187 controller and Toshiba 19nm Toggle NAND flash. The SSD, paired with custom Plextor firmware, drive performance numbers of up to 540MB/s and 430MB/s sequential read and write respectively and random read and write IOPS of up to 79,000 and 77,000.
January 29th, 2013 by Kevin OBrien
Seagate Enterprise Performance 10K HDD Savvio 10K.6 Review
The Seagate enterprise hard drive portfolio is getting a bit of a branding makeover, in this case the high-speed Savvio 10K drives migrate to the Enterprise Performance 10K category. We still know the drives underneath this umbrella by their proper names though, the Savvio 10K.6 being the subject of this review. In many ways, the 10K.6 represents a progressive step forward when compared to the prior generation 10K.5. The biggest highlight though is performance, the Savvio 10K.6 offers sustained throughput of 204MB/s, where the 10K.5 posted 168MB/s, a better than 20% increase. Such speed bumps are more than a nice to have. For many uses cases, like data centers want both performance and capacity in a high-performance storage tier, being able to move away from large form factor 15K drives and low capacity SFF 15K drives is a tremendous win.
January 26th, 2013 by Josh Linden
LaCie 2big Thunderbolt RAID DAS Review
Earlier this year, LaCie announced a lineup of new storage devices with Thunderbolt connectivity. The 2big Thunderbolt features two hard drives that can be operated in RAID 0, RAID 1, or JBOD, allowing the user to take advantage of Thunderbolt's high-speed data transfers for storage-intensive workstation applications in RAID 0 or to serve as portable storage with a redundant backup in RAID 1. With two Thunderbolt ports, the 2big can also daisy chain with other Thunderbolt devices.
January 23rd, 2013 by Josh Linden
Patriot Gauntlet 320 Wireless External Hard Drive Review
Patriot Memory is not a brand traditionally associated with external storage, but the company's Gauntlet line of wireless external hard drives is part of an effort to broaden that image. The Gauntlet 320, announced in October, offers 320GB of onboard storage intended to supplement the limited internal storage available on mobile and portable devices such as tablets, smartphones, and laptops. Patriot provides a Gauntlet Connect app for Andriod, iOS, and Kindle Fire to streamline its network configuration and provide storage access on mobile devices.
January 22nd, 2013 by Josh Linden
Netgear Centria Multifunction Wireless Router and NAS Review
Netgear’s Centria is the company’s latest multifunction home and small home office router. Like other recent high-performance home and SOHO wireless routers, Centria features dual 450Mbps transceivers capable of a theoretical maximum throughput of 900 Mbps and consolidates routing, switching, NAS/backup, and media streaming functionality into once device. Unlike previous Netgear routers which allowed users to add storage exclusively through external USB interfaces, the Centria provides an internal SATA bay for hard drive storage.
January 22nd, 2013 by Doug Crowthers
LaCie 2big NAS 6TB Review
LaCie and beautiful design intuitively go together, thanks to years of LaCie regularly pumping out great looking storage devices. The LaCie 2big 2-bay NAS system is no different, sporting solid-aluminum body. It features LaCie's NAS OS 3.0, which makes NAS management easy. Out of the box, the 2big NAS comes configured in RAID 1, but has support for RAID 0 configurations.
January 14th, 2013 by Doug Crowthers
Kingston DataTraveler Workspace with Windows To Go Review
The Kingston DataTraveler Workspace is a bootable USB 3.0 flash drive designed to be used with Windows To Go, a feature of Windows 8 Enterprise. The DataTraveler Workspace is one of the few flash drives that are certified for Windows To Go, giving users on-the-go Windows experience. The USB 3.0 drive incorporates SandForce SSD controller technology to produce a high-performance, low-latency drive. It's factory configured as a fixed drive so it boots through USB 3.0 or USB 2.0 ports on compatible hardware.
January 13th, 2013 by Brian Beeler
LaCie Blade Runner by Philippe Starck Review
The LaCie Blade Runner is a 4TB external hard drive that's unlike any other on the market. While the tech specs feature big capacity and USB 3.0 connectivity, the real story is the drive's design and designer. When LaCie went to Philippe Starck to design an external drive, he indicated that beyond anything else, he didn't want it to look like an external drive. Mission accomplished. The end product is as much functional tech as it is desktop artwork; a combination that will appeal not only to Starck enthusiasts around the world, but anyone who's willing to invest a little more for a stylish piece.
January 7th, 2013 by Kevin OBrien
SanDisk Ultra Plus SSD Review
The SanDisk Ultra Plus is a mainstream SSD designed for client system use. The Ultra Plus uses a standard 2.5" 7mm form factor with SATA 6Gb/s interface and is powered by a Marvell 9175 controller with in-house SanDisk firmware and SanDisk's 19nm MLC NAND. The combined package nets sequential read and write performance of up to 530 MB/s and 445 MB/s respectively. Like most SSDs though, the bottom line isn't just about top speed, it's also about smarter features that let users get more out of their drives while maintaining high levels of reliability.
