It's expensive but impressive, Acer's new Aspire S5 Ultrabook

Subject: Storage | October 7, 2012 - 03:33 PM | Jeremy Hellstrom
Tagged: ultrabook, Aspire S5, Aspire S Series, acer

The Acer Aspire S5 is a 13.3", 1366x768 ultrabook with a Intel Core i7-3317U, 4GB of DDR3 and two 128GB SSDs in RAID 0. At its thickest point it measures 0.59" and overall is a blazing fast ultraportable system, in fact TechSpot saw some results where the S5 outperformed a system with OCZ's RevoDrive X3 PCIe SSD inside. Connectivity options are very impressive as well with not only the usual suspects,USB 3.0 and HDMI, there is also a Thunderbolt port on the back. The news is not all good however, as this ultrabook is likely to cost around $1400 which is much higher than the supposed sub-$1000 ultrabook price requirement.

"'Easier said than done' is the best phrase I can think of to describe Intel's ultrabook initiative. On paper, the plan seemed easy enough, although manufacturing partners and knowledgeable consumers alike would testify that it's been anything but. Aspirations to compete with Apple's ultrathin MacBook Air have been met with a number of compromises as hardware makers struggle to find the perfect blend of features while keeping the overall price somewhere around Intel's $1,000 target.

Could a few hundred bucks tacked on the top end make a difference between a vanilla ultrabook and something truly special? That's something Acer is willing to gamble on with its latest flagship ultrabook. "

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Source: TechSpot

The Vertex series returns to it's roots with the Indilinx infused Everest 2 controller

Subject: Storage | October 7, 2012 - 03:05 PM | Jeremy Hellstrom
Tagged: ocz, Vertex 4, indilinx everest 2, ssd, 240gb, Marvell 9145

The Vertex 4 series from OCZ will end up being an intermediary controller between the old Marvell 9145 based Indilinx design which OCZ now owns and a new controller that is being designed in house by OCZ and the Indilinx team which came as part of the acquisition. That doesn't mean this drive should be avoided, the prices are quite good with the 512GB model being one of the most affordable new drives on the market. [H]ard|OCP's testing had it performing at the top of the pack in many benchmarks and the drive comes with a 5 year warranty so you are getting quite a lot for a relatively low price.

"The Vertex 4 is a departure from OCZ's tried and true model of using third party controllers and firmware for its SSDs. Taking control of the firmware with the Vertex 4 gives OCZ the ability to tune the SSDs for speed and performance at lower queue depths and optimize for low latency. We test to see if the Everest 2 Platform delivers."

Here are some more Storage reviews from around the web:

Storage

Source: [H]ard|OCP

Intel Atom D2500 and D2550 Processors Powering Upcoming NAS Devices

Subject: Storage | October 7, 2012 - 12:44 AM | Tim Verry
Tagged: Thecus, qnap, NAS, Intel, atom d2550, atom d2500, asustor

Earlier this week, Intel announced that two of its Cedar Trail Atom-series processors would be powering several upcoming Network Attached Storage (NAS) devices. Intended to be used in devices for home and small business users, they will feature either the Intel Atom D2500 or D2550 processor. Centralized content vaults, so-called personal clouds (internet and LAN-accessible storage), and security systems are all possible uses of the Intel Atom CPU-powered NAS boxes.

Both 32nm chips have a 10W TDP, 1MB of L2 cache, and are clocked at 1.86GHz. The D2500 has two cores while the D2550 is a dual core part with HyperThreading for a total of four threads. Both processors have an integrated northbridge and a PowerVR SGX545 GPU. The D2500 has the integrated GPU clocked at 400MHz while the Atom D2550’s SGX545 GPU is running at 640MHz.

	D2500	D2550
Cores (with HT)	2 / 2	2 / 4
Clockspeed	1.86 GHz	1.86 GHz
L2 Cache	1 MB	1 MB
Graphics Clock	400 MHz	640 MHz
TDP	10 W	10 W
Pricing (tray)	$42	$47

The Intel-powered NAS boxes will have anywhere from two to eight hard drives and offer up a number of features. For example, the storage devices will be able to integrate the McAfee AV SDK to run virus scans on your media files on the NAS itself. And thanks to the GPU, platforms with storage and the Atom chips will be able to support up to two external displays. The example Intel provided is a security system where the D2500/D2550 can power a computer with lots of attached storage and up to output up to four HD video stream on up to two displays thanks to GPU acceleration.

The Thecus N5550 NAS using the Intel Atom processor.

NAS boxes from QNAP, Asustor, and Thecus will be available at launch, with additional devices from other manufacturers coming in the future. The Thecus device is available for purchase now for around $600 without hard drives pre-installed.

On the small business side of things, Intel has announced that Mostor and Dane-Elec have also jumped on board to provide optimized software for the hardware used in business environments.

Read the full press release on Intel's website.

Source: Intel

Samsung 840 Series 250GB SSD Full Review - Time for some TLC

Author: Allyn Malventano

Date: October 3, 2012

Subject: Storage

Manufacturer: Samsung SSD Product Page

Tagged: tlc, ssd, Samsung, pro, mdx, 840

Introduction, Specifications and Packaging

Introduction

Last week, Samsung flew myself and a few of my fellow peers in the storage review community out to Seoul, Korea. The event was the 2012 Samsung SSD Global Summit:

At this event, Samsung officially announced their new 840 Pro, which we were able to obtain early under NDA and therefore publish in concert with the announcement. The 840 Pro was largely an incremental inprovement over their 830 Series. Newer, faster flash coupled with a higher clocked controller did well to improve on an already excellent product.

As the event closed, we were presented with the second model of the lineup - the 840. This model, sans the 'Pro' moniker, is meant more for general consumer usage. The first mass marketed SSD to use Triple Level Cell (TLC) flash, it sacrifices some write speed and long-term reliability in favor of what should become considerably lower cost/GB as production ramps up to full capacity. TLC flash is the next step beyond MLC, which is in turn a step after SLC. Here's a graphic to demonstrate:

Read on for the full review!

Western Digital launches 4TB RE Series in both SATA and SAS flavors

Subject: Storage | September 27, 2012 - 08:00 AM | Allyn Malventano
Tagged: western digital, wdc, WD, RE, RAID Edition, raid

Today Western Digital announced a new line of RAID Edition (RE) drives. While the WD RE series is not new, preceded by the RE4-GP and faster spinning RE4, it was certainly overdue for an update.

This update brings the maximum capacity to 4TB and includes a SAS line as well. SATA connectivity will be 6Gb/sec, while SAS will employ dual port full duplex connectivity for the higher end enterprise sector. These drives appear to use the same platter capacity scheme employed by the recent WD Red Series, though the PR blast states 800GB/platter. I'm awaiting clarification on that point, as the math doesn't seem to work out evenly. Pricing is at a premium for these models, as they are intended for enterprise use. Mid to high $400's for SATA and SAS. Pricey, but still 1/10th of current good deals on SSDs.

Press blast (and detailed pricing) after the break!

Source: Western Digital RE Series Product Page

Samsung smashes the 830 series with the 840 Pro

Subject: Storage | September 25, 2012 - 05:02 PM | Jeremy Hellstrom
Tagged: Samsung, 840 Pro 512GB, 840, mdx, pro, ssd

Allyn wasn't the only one blown away by the performance and efficiency increase of the new Samsung 840 Pro 512GB SSD, anyone who had a chance to review this drive saw incredible performance. It is not yet available for purchase but you can expect to see the 256G at $270 and this 512GB at around $600 when they do become available. Inside the 3-core eight channel MDX controller is paired with eight 64GB modules of Samsung’s new 21nm MLC DDR-2 toggle mode NAND, which give this drive its incredible speed. SSD Reviews came to the same conclusion that Al did, we need a new interface as SATA 6Gb/s is already being saturated by high end SSDs.

"Our report on the Samsung 840 Pro SSD begins post take off from Pearson Int’l Airport in Toronto and on route to Seoul, South Korea. Having had this SSD in our hands for some time, even the enormity of the Samsung 840 family release celebration cannot overshadow the performance of what just might be the hottest solid state drive to hit the streets to date. How does just under an extra hour laptop life and 100,000 IOPS grab you to start?"

Here are some more Storage reviews from around the web:

Storage

Source: SSD Review

The media might last a million years, what about the reader?

Subject: General Tech, Storage | September 25, 2012 - 01:19 PM | Jeremy Hellstrom
Tagged: hitachi, foresight

Hitachi has created a sliver of quartz glass 2cm square and 2mm thick with the storage density of a CD, 40MB/in² which they claim will remain viable for millions of years. Even radiation, water, most chemicals and heat above 1000C will not damage the data stored on this chip and in theory dropping it shouldn't hurt it too much either. Long term storage is a real problem, in some cases paper documents have a better chance of surviving long term in a readable state than do optical or magnetic media. That doesn't even bring readers into the loop, there are many obsolete formats which cannot be read by current readers and finding an old working Zip drive is not an easy task. Hitachi told The Register that they foresee no problems increasing storage density which is good considering the size of crystal you would need for large sized storage. As long as someone can read the binary etched into the glass they would recognize that there was data stored there, on the other hand what is the likelihood they would be running a compatible file system. At least the data will still be there which is more than you can say for the vast majority of storage media used today.

"Company researchers displayed the storage unit, consisting of a sliver of glass 2cm square and 2mm thick, which can hold 40MB of data per square inch, about the same as a standard CD. The data is written in binary format by lasering dots on the glass in four layers, but the researchers say adding more layers to increase storage density isn't a problem."

Here is some more Tech News from around the web:

Tech Talk

Source: The Register

Samsung 840 Pro 512GB SSD Full Review - Samsung Ups the Ante

Author: Allyn Malventano

Date: September 24, 2012

Subject: Storage

Manufacturer: Samsung SSD Product Page

Tagged: 840, mdx, pro, Samsung, ssd

Introduction, Specifications and Packaging

Introduction

Samsung has been at this SSD thing for quite some time now. The first SSD I bought was in fact a Samsung unit meant for an ultraportable laptop. Getting it into my desktop was a hack and a half, involving a ZIF to IDE adapter, which then passed through yet another adapter to convert to SATA. The drive was wicked fast at the time, and while it handily slaughtered my RAID-0 pair of 74GB VelociRaptors in random reads, any writes caused serious stuttering of the drive, and therefore the entire OS. I was clearly using the drive outside of its intended use, but hey, I was an early adopter.

Several SSDs later came the Intel X25-M. It was a great drive, but in its earliest form was not without fault. Luckily, these kinks were worked out industry-wide, and everyone quickly accelerated their firmware optimizations as to better handle random writes. Samsung took a few generations to get this under control. The first to truly get over this hump was the 830 Series, which launched earlier this year. It utilized a triple core Arm 9 CPU which was able to effectively brute force heavy random write workloads. It also significantly increased the speed and nimbleness of the 830 across the board, which combined with Samsung's excellent reliability record, quickly made it my most recommended series as of late.

...and now we have the 840 Series, which launched today. Well, technically it launched yesterday if you're reading from the USA. Here in Korea the launch started at 10 AM and spanned a day of product press briefings leading to the product NDA expiration at 8 PM Korea time. This review will focus on the 512GB capacity of the 840 Pro model. We will follow on with the 840 (non-pro) at a later date:

Read on for the full review!

Samsung Launches New 840, 840 Pro SSD Series at Global SSD Summit

Subject: Storage | September 23, 2012 - 10:00 PM | Allyn Malventano
Tagged: ssd, Samsung, pro, mdx, 840

Good morning from Seoul, Korea!

I'm here at the Samsung Global SSD Summit, where Samsung has officially launched their 840 Series of SSDs. This new controller features many advancements which enable it to climb past 100,000 IOPS in random reads (!!!). Samsung also claims peaks of 90,000 IOPS in random writes. These are seriously high numbers for any SATA SSD, and we will be publishing our full review of the 840 Pro once the NDA lifts later this evening (tomorrow morning for everyone back in the states).

Unfortunately there is nothing more I can disclose at this time, but stay tuned for more info! While all of you are sleeping tonight, I will be attending several briefings covering the 840, and those juicy tidbits will all be filtered into our review, so don't miss this one!

Press Blast after the break:

Source: Samsung SSD Product Page

HGST Working With Helium To Inflate Hard Drive Capacities

Subject: Storage | September 19, 2012 - 11:27 AM | Tim Verry
Tagged: western digital, WD, patter density, hitachi, hgst, helium, Hard Drive, 6tb

Western Digital-owned Hitachi Global Storage (HGST) recently announced that it is pursuing the mass production of helium-filled hard drives. The culmination of six-plus years of research and development, Hitachi’s engineers have come up with a workable solution to craft a sealed enclosure to contain the helium and internal drive hardware over the long term and in a way that can be mass produced. While the company is not ready to talk specifics or announce individual products, HGST (Western Digital) is going on record in stating that its helium-filled “hard drive platform” will offer up performance, power efficiency, and capacity improvements in a 3.5" form factor (with up to seven platters) sometime in 2013.

Don't try this at home folks, it won't actually work :).

The current crop of hard drives have small holes on the top to allow air pressure equalization, as the drives are not a fully-sealed design (and is why dunking them in oil is a bad idea). The proposed helium-filled hard drives would change that design, by being fully sealed from the outside environment after being filled with the noble gas. Steve Campbell, CTO at HGST stated the following in the company's press release:

“The benefits of operating a HDD with helium fill have been known for a long time. The breakthrough is in the product and process design, which seals the helium inside the HDD enclosure cost effectively in high-volume manufacturing,”

But why exactly is helium better for hard drives? In short, the gas is one-seventh (1/7) as dense as the air around us. This reduction in density allows for the platters to spin faster, or at the same spindle speeds at today's drives while experiencing less resistance and turbulance from versus an air-filled hard drive. Thanks to the reduced drag force, Hitachi can pack the platters closer together, which means that it can place more platters into the 3.5" hard drive form factor than ever before – up to seven with the current design. Further, the motor does not have to work as hard to drive the platters which results in quieter operation and more power savings. HGST also claims that using helium allows for better thermal conductivity, and allows the helium-filled hard drives to run up to 4°C cooler than an equivalently-configured air-equalized drive. Granted, 4°C is not that much of an improvement when looking at a single drive (or even a few in a desktop system), but it can add up to some decent cooling savings when these drives are utilized in datacenters.

Hitachi Global Storage does not yet have any specific products to announce publicly, but the company did offer up a few performance numbers that certainly seem promising – an in line with the company's goal of reducing the "total cost of ownership," or TCO. In addition tot he temperature improvements, the company claims up to 23% power reduction versus air. And when HGST factors in its seven-platter design, they have managed to bring the Watts-per-Terabyte (W/TB) 45% versus current drives. Assuming the helium-aided hard drives use the same (or more) amount of platter area as the company's previous drives, Hitachi/Western Digital could offer up to 7TB hard drives when combined with the company's 1TB per platter areal density improvements.

It has the potential to get even better, however. Should the engineers be able to integrate Heat Assisted Magnetic Recording (HAMR) – similar to what Seagate is pursuing – helium hard drives could offer up approximately 85TB 3.5" drives thanks to the additional two platters. Previously, Seagate envisioned up to 60TB HAMR hard drives in the 3.5" form factor. Those numbers are fairly far off in the future (and theoretical), however. On the other hand, Seagate believes that 6TB HAMR hard drives are reasonably close to public consumption, and if a HAMR drive could also benefit from the extra platters, potential spindle speed improvements, and power savings of using helium, I think 8TB+ is not out of the question while using less power than a traditional air-equalized (not sealed) 6TB HAMR-equipped hard drive.

Extremetech does bring up an interestng point about pricing, though. Mainly that helium is much more expensive than simply using the air around us! And as it is used up, it will only get more expensive, which are likely costs that will be passed onto consumers. Fortunately, it should not be too much of a premium that customers would have to pay (over a traditional hard drive) because a 3.5" hard drive will need only a small amount of the helium gas to realize the benefits, according to PC Perspective's resident storage guru Allyn Malventano.

What do you think about the prospects of a heluim-filled hard drive? Will we see such devices within our lifetimes, and just how much will these things cost? I suppose we'll have to wait until next year to find out!

Source: HGST

Subject: Storage | October 7, 2012 - 03:33 PM | Jeremy Hellstrom Tagged: ultrabook, Aspire S5, Aspire S Series, acer

Subject: Storage | October 7, 2012 - 03:05 PM | Jeremy Hellstrom Tagged: ocz, Vertex 4, indilinx everest 2, ssd, 240gb, Marvell 9145

Subject: Storage | October 7, 2012 - 12:44 AM | Tim Verry Tagged: Thecus, qnap, NAS, Intel, atom d2550, atom d2500, asustor

Introduction, Specifications and Packaging

Subject: Storage | September 27, 2012 - 08:00 AM | Allyn Malventano Tagged: western digital, wdc, WD, RE, RAID Edition, raid

Subject: Storage | September 25, 2012 - 05:02 PM | Jeremy Hellstrom Tagged: Samsung, 840 Pro 512GB, 840, mdx, pro, ssd

Subject: General Tech, Storage | September 25, 2012 - 01:19 PM | Jeremy Hellstrom Tagged: hitachi, foresight

Introduction, Specifications and Packaging

Subject: Storage | September 23, 2012 - 10:00 PM | Allyn Malventano Tagged: ssd, Samsung, pro, mdx, 840

Subject: Storage | September 19, 2012 - 11:27 AM | Tim Verry Tagged: western digital, WD, patter density, hitachi, hgst, helium, Hard Drive, 6tb

Subject: Storage | October 7, 2012 - 03:33 PM | Jeremy Hellstrom
Tagged: ultrabook, Aspire S5, Aspire S Series, acer

Subject: Storage | October 7, 2012 - 03:05 PM | Jeremy Hellstrom
Tagged: ocz, Vertex 4, indilinx everest 2, ssd, 240gb, Marvell 9145

Subject: Storage | October 7, 2012 - 12:44 AM | Tim Verry
Tagged: Thecus, qnap, NAS, Intel, atom d2550, atom d2500, asustor

Subject: Storage | September 27, 2012 - 08:00 AM | Allyn Malventano
Tagged: western digital, wdc, WD, RE, RAID Edition, raid

Subject: Storage | September 25, 2012 - 05:02 PM | Jeremy Hellstrom
Tagged: Samsung, 840 Pro 512GB, 840, mdx, pro, ssd

Subject: General Tech, Storage | September 25, 2012 - 01:19 PM | Jeremy Hellstrom
Tagged: hitachi, foresight

Subject: Storage | September 23, 2012 - 10:00 PM | Allyn Malventano
Tagged: ssd, Samsung, pro, mdx, 840

Subject: Storage | September 19, 2012 - 11:27 AM | Tim Verry
Tagged: western digital, WD, patter density, hitachi, hgst, helium, Hard Drive, 6tb