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Fusion-io Unveils ioDrive2 SSD Card with Insane Data Speeds

Shane McGlaun — Tue, 04 Oct 2011 19:30:36 +0000

If you are the sort that has to have whatever the fastest storage is on the market – be it in the business setting or at home, the ioDrive2 is among the fastest you will find. This is a little PCIe slot SSD that has new specifications to make a blazing fast storage class memory device. The drive can be used for applications that need really fast speeds and low latency.

The ioDrive2 is available in multiple capacities with up to 2.4TB of storage available. The device has almost symmetrical read and write access according to Fusion-io. It has 15 microsecond latency and 3 GB/s of bandwidth with 700,000 read IOPS and 900,000 write IOPS.

The drive also has a new self-healing feature that will rewrite data lost if one or more chips fails, the data can be written to other chips without interrupting use. With super fast performance comes a huge price. The 365GB version starts at $5,950 (USD). It comes in 785GB, 1205GB, and 2.4TB. I can only imagine that the high-end capacity would be super expensive.

Addonics 6-Slot CF & CFast Drive Bays: Compact Platform for Compact Flash

Lambert Varias — Tue, 12 Apr 2011 12:13:44 +0000

If you frequently use CF or CFast cards or have a bunch of them lying around unused, you should check out these CF & CFast drives from Addonics. Using these drives you can access up to 6 cards simultaneously, either as individual disks, as a single boot drive or a combination of both. There are also versions of both drives that are connected to a Hardware Port Multiplier (HPM), so you can have a variety of RAID set ups.

The drives will fit into the standard 5.25″ bays so you shouldn’t have a problem fitting them into your PC tower or rack. The picture above shows the CF and CFast drives with independent card slots, while the one below shows the drives with HPMs, which support RAID 0, 1, 3, 5, 10, JBOD, Clone Mode (N-Way Mirror) or a five drive setup.

You can order these drives directly from Addonics. The drives without HPMs sell for $135 (USD), while those that have HPMs sell for $199. Customization options are also available, including the option to order a drive with a combination of CF and CFast slots.

[via Electronista]

OCZ Technology Vertex 3 SSDs are FAST

Shane McGlaun — Fri, 25 Feb 2011 18:00:21 +0000

OCZ may be vacating many of the markets it used to be in, but it is taking their extra resources and putting those towards making cool gear like the new line of Vertex 3 SSDs. These solid state drives are so fast, the word fast seems too slow.

The Vertex 3 line includes the normal drive and the Vertex 3 Pro. Both of the drives are able to connect to SATA 6Gbps ports, and the both use the Sandforce SF-2200 processor to control the action. That processor gives the SSDs performance of 550MB/s write and 500MB/s read.

The Pro SSD has additional tweaks for enterprise use for better reliability and it uses MLC NAND memory inside. The standard Vertex 3 will ship in 120GB and 240GB capacities with the Pro version in 100GB, 200GB, and 400GB versions. Pricing has not been announced at this time.

Micron RealSSD C400 Drives Speed Up, Double Capacity

Range — Thu, 06 Jan 2011 15:22:00 +0000

As expected, some new solid-state drives are being showcased at this week’s CES. Micron was the first to show things off with their RealSSD C400 drives – based upon a 25-nanometer NAND flash die-based drive.

These new drives will offer performance that could be nearly 30% faster than previous SSDs, and SSDs were already fast. The new RealSSD C400 will come in 1.8-inch and 2.5-inch sizes, with storage ranging from 64GB to 512GB.

Ever since I opened up my MacBook Pro 17 on Christmas Day, I’ve been thinking about upgrading to add an extra SSD drive. However, high costs and these speedy upcoming 25-nanometer drives stopped me from doing so in December. Expect blindingly fast booting speeds from these drives when they arrive.

Mass production is expected to begin in early February, 2011, and Micron will sell these as part as the Crucial drive family in the first quarter of 2011.

[via PCWorld]

LaCie Float Concept External HDD Doubles as a Trackpad

Shane McGlaun — Sat, 18 Dec 2010 14:30:52 +0000

I think that all computer users need an external HDD to back their data up to. If you are like me and haven’t taken a picture on film in years, you probably have a drive inside your computer full of pics that you can’t replace if they get lost in a crash. That’s the sort of thing you need to backup.

The problem with most external hard drives is that they just sit there and get in the way. They have no point other than to store your data. LaCie has all sorts of external storage products and a designer named André Silva has come up with a design concept for LaCie called the Float.

This HDD is all kinds of cool because it has a point other than to just store data. The drive has a top that can be used as a multi-touch track pad that recognizes gestures. As an added bonus, the unit “floats” atop your desktop on a glass base, which has cool LED lighting underneath.

This thing looks like something Apple would sell to me. It’s a really cool idea and I hope that the product comes to market.

[via Yanko Design]

Owc Data Doubler Adds Extra Hard Drive to Your iMac or Mac Mini

Shane McGlaun — Sat, 30 Oct 2010 14:00:24 +0000

It took me a while to come to grips with using a netbook or ultra portable without an optical drive. At first, I worried that I would miss the drive all the time, and on occasion I do. For the most part the optical drive not being in my netbook doesn’t bother me at all.

Most of us just don’t use the optical drive much and if we do need it at home, that’s what network drive mapping is for or a USB drive. Other World Computing has a cool new offering for people using a Mac mini or iMac computer that want more storage space and don’t use their optical drive called Data Doubler.

The Data Doubler is a kit that includes a mounting tray and all the hardware needed to replace that unused optical drive with an extra SSD or HDD for more storage. The kit will fit into Mac mini computers from early and mid 2009. It will also fit into most iMac machines with screens 20-inches and up from the middle of 2009 up. Pro installation is recommended for the iMac users, but the mini user can do the install DIY style.

You can grab the Data Doubler over at OWC for $79.99 (USD).

Seagate Momentus Xt Hybrid Hard Drive: Solid (State) Performance

Lambert Varias — Wed, 11 Aug 2010 12:04:27 +0000

Seagate’s new Momentus XT hard drive has most of the benefits of a pure solid state drive without most of the cons. The Momentus XT’s hard disk drive comes in three capacities – 250 GB, 320 GB and 500 GB. Compared with drives of similar capacities, Momentus XT drives are almost three times as expensive as normal hard disk drives, but they’re anywhere from 4 to 10 times less expensive than solid state drives. So why go for the middle? All Momentus XT hard drives are equipped with 4gb of solid state memory, enough to significantly boost boot-up times and application launches.

Of course, with these things there’s nothing more convincing than actual tests. Here’s Seagate’s comparison of the performance of different hard drive capacities. If you don’t feel like sitting through all 8 minutes, jump to 7:04 for the final times.

Click to View Embedded Video Clip

As I said, most of the pros of an SSD without most of the cons. You can order Seagate Momentus XT hybrid drives at Amazon. The 500 GB model is currently available for $134 (USD), the 320 GB sells for $125, and the 250 GB for $100.

USB 3.0 Hard Drive Enclosure Welcomes Your Old Hard Drive to 2010

Lambert Varias — Mon, 29 Mar 2010 11:30:23 +0000

Have any spare 2.5″ SATA drives? Don’t throw them away just yet: Century is selling hard drive/solid state drive enclosures which provide USB 3.0 compatibility.

The enclosure still works with USB 2.0 ports, so you don’t have to worry if you’re still saving up for a USB 3.0-equipped computer. The enclosure also has a neat screw-less design, so you can assemble your own external hard drive in a snap.

You can pre-order the Century USB 3.0 2.5″ HDD/SSD enclosure at Geek Stuff 4 U for about $48 (USD). Shipping starts April 10.

Tiny Innodisk 128 Gb Nano Ssd Flaunted and Tortured at Computex

Lambert Varias — Tue, 09 Jun 2009 12:30:10 +0000

The word “nano” got thrown around yet again as InnoDisk gave the world a glimpse of the future at the recently concluded Computex exhibit. This time it’s a solid state drive we’re talking about. So is it worthy of being called a nano SSD? See for yourself:

Damn. That’s 128 GB in a box just a bit bigger than a wristwatch. The nano SSD has a maximum write speed of 160 megabytes/sec, and read speed of up to 150 megabytes/sec. To give you a better idea of how nano it is, here’s the full shot, with the SSD compared alongside a 3.5-in HD and a 2.5-in SSD:

InnoDesk also showed that the tiny drive can take a beating too; they setup a motherboard with the nano SSD hooked up to it, and subjected it continuously to 20gs of “accelerative force.”

Click to View Embedded Video Clip

I wasn’t there so I don’t know how InnoDisk proved that their drive survived the test, but apparently it did. Let’s just believe them for now and imagine a future with tiny computers and even tinier PMPs running on nano hardware like this. Mmmmm. The future looks expensive. And tiny.

[via TweakTown]

Build an Ssd Raid Array Using Compact Flash Memory Cards

Technabob — Sat, 14 Jun 2008 02:57:21 +0000

Got a couple of spare Compact Flash memory cards lying around? Why not turn them into a high-speed, redundant drive array? With this new drive module, you can create your own solid-stated RAID array in seconds.

Simply plug in up to three Compact Flash cards, and this nifty device will set up a RAID array between them, which you can connect to your computer’s high-speed SATA port. With three cards in place, you’ll have a fully-redundant RAID 5 array. But if you’re just looking for raw speed and don’t care too much about the risk of data loss, you can just run a smoking-fast RAID 0 configuration with as few as two drives. As the system will only run at the speed of the slowest installed memory card, I’d recommend that you use the same type of card for all slots.

With more acronyms in its name than should be allowed in a single product, the DIY SSD SATA array is available from GeekStuff4U for about $190 USD.

The End of the Hard Disk: Solid State Drives Hit 160gb

Technabob — Sat, 24 Feb 2007 14:57:52 +0000

This week, Adtron announced the availability of a new solid state drive (SSD) that’s capable of storing a record-breaking 160GB in its flash memory. The drive will be available in IDE and Serial ATA version.

As storage size is rapidly approaching that of decent-sized hard drives, it would seem that these drives are really the future of computer storage. They consume significantly less power than mechanical drives, and can retrieve data at a much faster pace. The only thing holding back SSDs at this point is price, and that is expected to come down at a pretty good pace as production ramps up.

[via Ministry of Tech]