Samsung teams up with Ubisoft to include Assassin's Creed III with 840 Pro purchases

Subject: Storage | November 7, 2012 - 02:32 PM | Allyn Malventano
Tagged: ubisoft, Samsung, 840 pro

We're used to seeing various video card vendors tossing in some game titles to sweeten the deal. Now Samsung has jumped in the ring by including bonus copies of Assassin's Creed III with the purchase of 128, 256, or 512GB 840 Pro Series SSDs.

For a limited time, those who purchase a new 840 Pro will receive a download code for the new game. Note: this deal *does not* apply to the TLC-flash-equipped 840 Series (non-pro).

Press blast after the break:

Source: Samsung SSD Product Page

Sandisk's Extreme 240GB, not the fastest but certainly the lowest in power consumption

Subject: Storage | November 6, 2012 - 12:15 AM | Jeremy Hellstrom
Tagged: sandisk, 240gb, toggle NAND, SF-2181, sandforce, Extreme 240GB

SanDisk has been taking advantage of their long experience in the flash memory market to develop a line of SSDs which, apart from the controller, are all made in house. That way they only have to license a controller, in this case SandForce's 2181, avoiding the costs of developing and improving their own controller. The cost might be a bit high at $215 when you compare it to some of the deals currently available on the previous generation of SSDs. [H]ard|OCP saw better performance than they expected from the older SF-2181 but still not to the level of the current generation of controllers. What helped make this particular drive more attractive was the Toolkit which makes updating your firmware quite easy and remarkably low power consumption.

"The SanDisk Extreme 240GB is SanDisk's SandForce-powered SSD. Featuring Toggle Mode NAND and the SF-2181 with the latest firmware we give the SanDisk Extreme a spin. How does it stand up to its enthusiast competitors in terms of steady state and out of the box performance?"

Here are some more Storage reviews from around the web:

Storage

Source: [H]ard|OCP

Intel announces new DC S3700 Series of datacenter SSDs

Subject: Storage | November 5, 2012 - 12:39 PM | Allyn Malventano
Tagged: ssd, s3700, enterprise, datacenter

Today Intel officially launched a new line of enterprise-oriented SSDs. Dubbed the DC S3700 ('DC for Data Center', 'S' for SATA), this new line fills the large interface speed void left by the older 710 Series, which was limited to SATA 3Gb/sec speeds.

The S3700 makes some big promises and we are expecting samples shortly. Here's the tally of what's to come:

Intel designed 8-channel controller ASIC and firmware
SATA 6Gb/sec interface
7mm x 2.5" form factor
Random 4k writes 15x faster and reads 2x faster than SSD 710
75,000 4k random read IOPS (all models)
19/32/36/36k 4k random write IOPS (for 100/200/400/800GB capacity)
500MB/sec sequential reads (all models)
200/365/460/460 MB/sec sequential writes (for 100/200/400/800GB capacity)
25nm MLC-HET IMFT flash
Rated for 10 Drive Writes per Day (DWPD) over a 5-year lifetime
Solid-State-Capacitor backed power-loss protection
Shipping in volume ~Q1 2013
1k qty pricing: $235/$470/$940/$1880 ea. for 100/200/400/800GB capacities

The cost of just over $2/GB should be very enticing for an enterprise-grade SSD, but the most interesting tidbit I got from the briefing was that Intel claims this drive will achieve a <500us response time for 4k random writes, 99.9% of the time. Most SSDs will begin to show intermittent peaks in latency when hit with sustained 4k random access. The S3700 Series should mostly eliminate that issue. More to follow on that front once we can log some hours on a sample.

Source: Intel DC S3700 Series SSD Intel Pressroom

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Intel SSD 335 Series 240GB Full Review - Intel's first 20nm SSD

Author: Allyn Malventano

Date: October 29, 2012

Subject: Storage

Manufacturer: Intel SSD Product Page

Tagged: 335, Intel, ssd

Introduction, Specifications and Packaging

Introduction

It's been a short while since we've seen a consumer SSD release from Intel, and with pressure coming from Samsung in the form of lower cost/GB 20nm flash, it was high time Intel followed suit. The Intel 335 Series launches today, and is essentially the same SandForce-driven product as their SSD 520 Series released earlier this year. The key change is this time around that controller will be driving Intel 20nm flash. This should bring a much needed price reduction to the SSD arena, as the 335 is not being marketed as a 'Pro' unit (like the Samsung's 840 Pro). So long as this new model performs similarly to the 520 Series, we should be in for a good, low cost SSD just in time for the Christmass shopping season.

Read on for the full review!

Plextor's M5 Pro features new flash and a new controller

Subject: Storage | October 26, 2012 - 02:52 PM | Jeremy Hellstrom
Tagged: plextor, m5 pro, ssd, toggle NAND, Marvell, Monet 88SS9187-BLD2

The Plextor M5 Pro introduces both Toshiba's new 19nm toggle NAND and Marvell's new 8-channel dual core Monet controller. [H]ard|OCP tried out the 256GB model, availble for $250, and were impressed not only by the performance but also the error correction abilities and the system utilities which were included. They were disappointed that the familiar Plextool software is not supported by this drive but they feel it is only a matter of time before Plextor remedies that issue. Check out the results of the benchmarks in their full review.

"Plextor brings the M5 Pro with the new Marvell Monet controller powering its banks of high performance Toshiba Toggle NAND. This is the debut of the first SSD with 19nm Toshiba Toggle NAND, the debutof the new Marvell Monet 88SS9187-BLD2 controller. We take a look and see what these new components bring to the table."

Here are some more Storage reviews from around the web:

Storage

Source: [H]ard|OCP

A quick look at the data on Apple's Fusion Drive

Subject: Editorial, Storage | October 24, 2012 - 08:26 PM | Allyn Malventano
Tagged: hybrid, fusion drive, fusion, apple

Yesterday, amongst a bunch of other announcements, Apple mentioned a 'new' technology that was built into OSX (10.8.2 and up).

Dubbed 'Fusion Drive', this tech enables the late 2012 Mac Mini and iMac models to have a pseudo-hybrid drive. There's been a lot of speculation today on just how this technology will work, but I've cut through the chaff to try and shed some proper light on just how this new thing works, and how it is so different than any other 'hybrid' solution out there.

First, it's not a hybrid drive. The iMac or Mac Mini comes with an SSD and a HDD. Two individual SATA devices. Both devices appear as individual drives, even in Disk Utility. Where the magic happens is that OSX can be configured (and is pre-configured in these new systems) to combine the two drives into one drive that presents itself to the user as a single logical volume. The important point is that the drives are 'fused' together, not merged or mirrored. The SSD and HDD each have their own partition, and OSX can reach beneath the Fusion layer and shift files back and forth between the two as it sees fit. Frequently used apps and files can be shifted back and forth between the SSD and HDD, as seen in the below pic:

The biggest differences are in that since it's not a mirrored hybrid solution, where the SSD space is not available, and a failure of the HDD causes loss of all data. Fusion Drive combines the two volumes and *adds* the space together, and the apps or files will sit on either device (but not both). All files written go to the SSD first and are later shifted to the HDD in the background. This is actually a very smart way to handle things. The entire OSX install always stays on the SSD, so there is no concern of OS files 'rolling off' of the SSD cache, causing intermittent slowdowns. More (perhaps most) importantly, if the HDD fails on a Fusion Drive setup, OSX should theoretically just keep on chugging, albeit without access to the files or apps that were stored on the HDD. On the flip side, if the SSD were to fail, the HDD could simply be mounted in Target Mode under another Mac, and all files stored to that drive could then be recovered. Sure you won't get everything back in these scenarios, but it provides *much* more flexibility for data recovery, and it's worth repeating the fact that an HDD failure in any other hybrid solution results in the loss of ALL data.

A couple of other quick gotchas: You can still dual boot with boot camp under a Fusion Drive setup, but the boot camp partition will only be at the end of the HDD, not on the SSD. Windows will not only run slower because it's on the spinning disk, it will run slower because the latter portions of a HDD typically see about half of the throughput as compared to the start of that disk. Also, you are only allowed *one* additional (non-Fusion) partition on the HDD, which can be used for another OSX install *or* for the Boot Camp Windows install. Users who prefer to boot greater than two operating systems on their newer Mac will have to do so with Fusion Drive disabled.

More to follow as more data comes in. For now I'm only working off of the other speculation and the Apple Support Page on the matter.

Source: Apple Fusion Drive @ Apple Support

$50 cache SSD anyone?

Subject: Storage | October 17, 2012 - 07:39 PM | Jeremy Hellstrom
Tagged: cache, ssd, sandisk, ReadyCache 32GB

SanDisk has been making flash based storage product for quite a long time and while they may not come to your mind when you are thinking of buying an SSD, they do have a variety of product lines available. [H]ard|OCP recently reviewed their 32GB ReadyCache SSD, which is powered by their own software and is a full sized SSD, so you won't need an mSATA slot in order to use the device. SanDisk also ensures your data's integrity by copying any data it is going to cache, so that a copy remains on your HDD in case the SSD dies on you. [H] were impressed by the ability of this drive to cache multiple HDDs and RAID volumes, a trick many other solutions can not manage. If you are looking for an inexpensive and easy way to increase your PCs performance you could do a lot worse than SanDisk's ReadyCache.

"SanDisk enters the caching solution market with the SanDisk ReadyCache 32GB SSD. This SSD provides instant acceleration to users' computers through intelligent software provided by Condusiv Technologies and hardware from SanDisk. By adding two tiers of data storage, both SSD and RAM, this solution looks promising."

Here are some more Storage reviews from around the web:

Storage

Source: [H]ard|OCP

Patriot Gauntlet 320 External Wireless Hard Drive

Author: Ryan Shrout

Date: October 16, 2012

Subject: Storage, Mobile

Manufacturer: Patriot

Tagged: video, patriot, gauntlet

Wireless storage for PC, Mac, iOS and Android

Today we are taking a look at the new Patriot Gauntlet 320 external USB 3.0 and wireless hard drive, available starting at $149 at Newegg.com.

The premise is quite simple: take a portable hard drive with USB 3.0 support and add in the ability to share the unit wirelessly with up to 8 different machines and power it by a lithium-ion battery. Not only does the Gauntlet show up in your network as a mountable drive in Windows and Mac OS, the Gauntlet supports using free applications for iOS devices and Android devices to share and stream media.

There are some limitations that you might want to consider including the inability to access network-based devices when using the pass through Internet capability the Gauntlet provides. Also, data transfer performance on the wireless connectivity that the Gauntlet provides seemed pretty low, even with the 802.11n support.

Potential uses cases for the Gauntlet include any time you need a shared data source like working on group projects for school or the office, on-the-go storage for devices like Ultrabooks with smaller hard drives and users that have large media collections they want to use with smart phones and tablets.

Check out our full video review below!

Note that in the video, our early sample of the Gauntlet 320 has the "node" label on it; the Gauntlet Node is a separate device that is only a DIY enclosure WITHOUT an included hard drive. Originally there was a sticker cover the "node" label but incorrectly removed it before filming. Just a heads up!

Western Digital RE RAID Edition 4TB SATA Enterprise Drive - Full Review

Author: Allyn Malventano

Date: October 10, 2012

Subject: Storage

Manufacturer: Western Digital RE (SATA) Product Page

Tagged: western digital, WD, RE, RAID Edition, 4TB

Introduction and Internals

Introduction:

The Western Digital RAID Edition line of hard drives has been around for some time now, and has largely impressed us with each subsequent release. Since the launches of the RE4-GP and later, the faster spinning RE4, WD's enterprise line had been capped at the 2TB mark. Now that has changed with the introduction of a new line: simply named the RE Series:

Yup, that's right. 4 TeraBytes! With the Green and Red series capped at 3TB, this new RE is the largest capacity drive available from Western Digital. The catch is that, since it's tailored and built for enterprise use, it comes at a rather hefty price premium.

Read on for the full review!

AMD Launches Radeon RAMDisk, Free 6GB Disks With AMD Memory

Subject: Storage | October 10, 2012 - 09:30 PM | Tim Verry
Tagged: ram disk, radeon ramdisk, radeon memory, amd memory, amd

AMD launched a new Radeon branded memory product today called the Radeon RAMDisk. Despite the rather unoriginal name, it is a piece of software that will allow you to use a portion of your system RAM as a hard drive-like storage device where you can install programs. AMD has partnered with Dataram to develop the software.

The AMD Radeon RAMDisk will create drives up to 64GB in size, and is designed to be used with AMD's own Radeon-branded DDR3 modules (though other manufacturer's RAM will work as well). The RAM disk offers up almost-instantaeous access times and impressive read and write speeds for your applications and virtual machines.

According to AMD, the Radeon RAMDisk can reach read speeds as high as 25,600 MB/s with DDR3 1600 RAM and up to 1700% faster game loading times than a traditional mechanical hard drive. It further supports the Windows operating system (Vista and above), and has a minimum system requirement of 4GB of system RAM.

The software costs $18.99 at time of writing for the full version.

The best part about this announcement though is the release of a freeware version of the Radeon RAMDisk that can create disks up to 6GB with AMD-branded RAM or 4GB with RAM from any other manufacturer! While that is fairly limiting in that you are not really going to be able to put much ont there (and installing games is almost out of the question entirely) you can still do a lot with a 4GB RAM disk by installing Office, photo editors, virtual machines (like Peppermint Linux), and other heavily used programs to speed up the important stuff.

You can acess the full press release on the Radeon RAMDisk website.

Download links:

Free version - Limited to 4GB or 6GB RAMDisks depending on memory brand.
Paid version - Create disks up to 64GB

If you have been with the site for at least the year that I’ve been writing here, you will know that I’m a huge fan of RAM disks. So, naturally, when I was passed the press release I just had to try it out.

While the extent of the performance increase is going to vary from program to program, the drive itself is extremely fast. When copying a .iso file to the Radeon RAMDisk, it was limited by my SSD's read speed, for example.

File Transfer To RAMDisk limited by SSD.jpg

The RAM Disk was set up om my main desktop which has basic specifications as follows:

Intel Core i7 -860 CPU
8GB (4 x 2GB) G.Skill DDR3 at 1333 MHz and 9-9-9-24 CAS timings
Gigabyte P55-UD3R Motherboard
4096 MB Radeon RAMDisk
80GB Intel X25-M G2 SSD
2TB Samsung Spinpoint hard drive
Windows 8 RTM

In addition to the file copy tests, I also used the HDTune benchmark to measure transfer speeds. Needless to say, RAM blows solid state NAND out of the water in speed (though it does cost more and is volatile storage).

In fact, it pulled such impressive numbers from HDTune that it skewed the chart a lot. Those little blips underneath it are from my Intel X25-M G2 80GB SSD and my 2TB Samsung Spinpoint mechanical hard drive.

HDTune also reports access times and burst speeds. The RAM disk had a 0.0 ms access time, the SSD has a 0.1 ms access time, and the mechanical hard drive brought up the rear with a 13.9 ms access time. Interestingly, the Samsung hard drive actually beat the SSD in burst speed. The RAM disk crush both of the other drives by a significant margin, however with a burst speed of 5,155 MB/s.

Over the years, I have used a RAMDisk for hosting photo editors as as using the drive for media I was currently working on. It worked well at the time, but the free software was not exactly what I would call stable. However, the AMD software is a mere 6.2 MB download that installs quickly and is easy to configure. The UI is spartan (and resembles Windows Classic), but it gets the job done and has yet to crash on me after trying to break it today (heh). It does not feel "janky" at all, and I have to give AMD and Dataram props for that.

Below are screenshots of the Radeon RAMDisk interface. You can create new disks as well as loading saved ones.

Yes, RAM being faster than hard drive storage is not new information, but I did find it surprising just how much faster it was, even compared to my SSD. Heck, even compared to a DDR2 based RAM disk, it was fast. It really puts into perspective why the hard drive is the slowest aspect of modern computers, and why things can slow to a crawl when the CPU has to reach out past the internal cache and system RAM to the hard drive to fetch data. If you are running a system with a lot of 'extra' RAM, I encourage you to take AMD's new Radeon RAMDisk software for a test drive. It's time to give those DDR3 DIMMs a workout!

Do you use RAM disks to speed up your favorite applications?

Source: AMD

Subject: Storage | November 7, 2012 - 02:32 PM | Allyn Malventano Tagged: ubisoft, Samsung, 840 pro

Subject: Storage | November 6, 2012 - 12:15 AM | Jeremy Hellstrom Tagged: sandisk, 240gb, toggle NAND, SF-2181, sandforce, Extreme 240GB

Subject: Storage | November 5, 2012 - 12:39 PM | Allyn Malventano Tagged: ssd, s3700, enterprise, datacenter

Introduction, Specifications and Packaging

Subject: Storage | October 26, 2012 - 02:52 PM | Jeremy Hellstrom Tagged: plextor, m5 pro, ssd, toggle NAND, Marvell, Monet 88SS9187-BLD2

Subject: Editorial, Storage | October 24, 2012 - 08:26 PM | Allyn Malventano Tagged: hybrid, fusion drive, fusion, apple

Subject: Storage | October 17, 2012 - 07:39 PM | Jeremy Hellstrom Tagged: cache, ssd, sandisk, ReadyCache 32GB

Wireless storage for PC, Mac, iOS and Android

Introduction and Internals

Subject: Storage | October 10, 2012 - 09:30 PM | Tim Verry Tagged: ram disk, radeon ramdisk, radeon memory, amd memory, amd

Subject: Storage | November 7, 2012 - 02:32 PM | Allyn Malventano
Tagged: ubisoft, Samsung, 840 pro

Subject: Storage | November 6, 2012 - 12:15 AM | Jeremy Hellstrom
Tagged: sandisk, 240gb, toggle NAND, SF-2181, sandforce, Extreme 240GB

Subject: Storage | November 5, 2012 - 12:39 PM | Allyn Malventano
Tagged: ssd, s3700, enterprise, datacenter

Subject: Storage | October 26, 2012 - 02:52 PM | Jeremy Hellstrom
Tagged: plextor, m5 pro, ssd, toggle NAND, Marvell, Monet 88SS9187-BLD2

Subject: Editorial, Storage | October 24, 2012 - 08:26 PM | Allyn Malventano
Tagged: hybrid, fusion drive, fusion, apple

Subject: Storage | October 17, 2012 - 07:39 PM | Jeremy Hellstrom
Tagged: cache, ssd, sandisk, ReadyCache 32GB

Subject: Storage | October 10, 2012 - 09:30 PM | Tim Verry
Tagged: ram disk, radeon ramdisk, radeon memory, amd memory, amd