The last time we heard from Centon they were using the SandForce 2281 SSD controller, which they have dropped in preference to a Phison controller in their new C-380 series of SSDs. Benchmark Reviews recently reviewed their 480GB model, using MLC NAND and sporting a 4Gb cache of DDR3-1600. The benchmark results were quite varied, sometimes the drive came in at the top of the pack yet other times it was well below average, especially writing to the drive. There is a 1 year warranty on the drive and currently it is on sale at $219 for the 480GB model, down from the list price of $399.99 … perhaps not a drive to recommend to your friends.
"Centon isn’t a name many enthusiasts will know. I’d never heard of the company myself until this review sample; apparently, they’ve been in business for over 35 years manufacturing DRAM and flash memory products, and have only recently entered the consumer marketplace. The Centon C-380 480GB SSD SATA-III Solid State Drive, part of the “Enthusiast Solutions” series, is the focus of what Benchmark Reviews will be putting through our test suite."
Here are some more Storage reviews from around the web:
- KingFast 256GB F9 SSD Review @ Madshrimps
- Micron M510DC 480GB SSD Review @ NikKTech
- Plextor M6V 256GB @ Kitguru
- The Ultimate Guide To SSD Benchmark Software @ The SSD Review
4GB cache? How about 4Gb?
4GB cache? How about 4Gb?
4GB refers to a capacity,
4GB refers to a capacity, such as RAM or hard drive space.
4Gb refers to a transfer rate, such as download speed.
4GB is correct.
That’s not even remotely
That’s not even remotely true. One refers to bits and the other bytes. There’s a factor of 8 difference and that is all. 4 Giga Bytes is a lot of memory for an SSD. DRAM chips are often refered to by their capacity in *bits*, so transposing 4Gb to 4GB is an understandable mistake. Unlike your strange misunderstanding.
4Gb are 500 Megabytes. It’s a
4Gb are 500 Megabytes. It’s a transfer rate.
Gigabytes are measure of quantity, while Gigabits are measure of speed with which you can send/receive/copy/paste those “Gigabytes” (if any) of information. 500 Megabytes are roughly half of a 1 Gigabyte, so 4 Gigabits are 0.50 of a Gigabyte sheer transfer rate-wise.
You have a very weak grasp of
You have a very weak grasp of the subject and it’s clearly slipping away from you.
1 byte = 8 bits
still with me?
Information can be stored and transfered. In both cases, it is completely fine to measure the amount of information with either bits or bytes. Some times one makes more sense than the other. Storage is generally expressed in bytes while information transfers are generally measured in bits per second. That last part is very important.
So, when someone says that a machine has 4 giga bits of storage, that’s a valid if non-typical way to say that it has a half giga byte of memory. (This is simplified as memory is made in powers of two, so they don’t use the metric base of 1000, but 1024.)
Someone could say that they have a 125 mega byte per second networking card in their machine and they’d be right, but we would normally say that they have a 1 giga bit per second networking card. (networking *does* use metric base 1000)
One last example: if a company makes a DRAM chip, they may say “this is a 4 giga bit chip”. That may sound non-standard to you, but individual memory chips are typically measured in bits and not bytes. Once they are combined with other chips into a module–like a DIMM–then they would be refered to using bytes.
So, both bits and bytes can be used in all cases, but it’s best to stick with the normal usage. But, as long as you properly specify the units you use, a reader should be able to convert the units to whatever they understand best.
This is something you failed to do in your post. You are specifying transfer rates without saying “per some unit of time”. So, those aren’t *rates*.
To conclude: the DRAM chip in the drive this article discusses is a 4 giba bit device. Not ‘giga’. Giga would mean 1,000,000,000 which would be wrong. It’s correctly ‘giba’ which means 1,073,741,824 (2^30 or 1024^3) This is the amount of data that this chip can *store*. Nothing is said about how fast it can transfer data.
Nice try, but no cigar. You
Nice try, but no cigar. You need to try way harder than just that, mister inexperienced troll.
This drive has 4Gb (bits) of
This drive has 4Gb (bits) of cache. The article here has a typo.
yup, it is a typo. I am
yup, it is a typo. I am deeply disappointed you didn't take the opportunity to point out I missed a space as well!
Hey, I only do technical
Hey, I only do technical review, you’ll have to get someone else to do the grammar and such. 😉
If they aren’t confident
If they aren’t confident enough to provide more than a refurb level warranty I’m not confident enough to buy it.
BREAKING NEWS…NOT!
P.S.
BREAKING NEWS…NOT!
P.S. BREAKING NEWS = SandForce is TRASH.
This uses a Phison
This uses a Phison controller. It even says that in the headline and smack in the middle of the photo.
But otherwise yes, the SandForce controller is quite old technology now.
Don’t you read?
The entire
Don’t you read?
The entire article screams “SANDFORCE IS GARBAGE, DON”T USE IT!”. That was my point. Phison’s controllers aren’t best ones out there, but still waaaaay better than the SandForce trash.