Report: eight 2 TB hard drives roundup!   Posted on 24/08/2010 at 11:59 by Damien

	Hitachi, Samsung, Seagate and Western all now sell hard drives with 2 TB capacities. How do they perform? You’ll find the answers here in our roundup of 8 2 TB hard drives! > Report: eight 2 TB hard drives roundup!

Samsung 470 Series SSD   Posted on 23/08/2010 at 11:03 by Marc

	After being one of the first to offer an MLC SSD worthy of the name, Samsung has since been absent from the market because of difficulties with its 3x nm NAND. These problems now seem to have been resolved as the manufacturer has just announced its new range of SSD, the 470 series. Available in 64, 128 and 256 GB versions, these SSDs have a 3 Gbits/s SATA interface for read performances announced at 250 MB/s and writes at 220 MB/s (170 MB/s for the 64 GB). In terms of random accesses Samsung has announced 31 000 IOPS for reads and 11 000, 20 000 and 21 000 for writes on the 64, 128 and 256 GB versions respectively. Although not faster than the Marvell or SandForce controller SSDs, the 470 series should give comparable performance. Energy consumption has been announced as very low, at 0.14W in idle and 0.24W in load. These SSDs are already available and have been announced at $199, $399 and $699.

Sandisk iSSD: the smallest!   Posted on 23/08/2010 at 09:32 by Marc

	Sandisk has announced it is at the sample stage for the smallest SSD in the world. Within the same BGA chip, the iSSD combines flash memory and the controller to give dimensions of 16x20x1.85mm, a veritable tour de force from Sandisk! The iSSD functions with a standard SATA interface directly integrated under the chip, with read speeds announced at 160 MB/s and writes at 100 MB/s for capacities going from 4 to 64 GB.

G.Skill Phoenix Pro 40, 80 and 160 GB   Posted on 19/08/2010 at 11:58 by Marc

	After Corsair, it’s over to G.Skill to launch its 40, 80 and 160 GB SSDs, the Phoenix Pros based on the SandForce SF-1200. These new capacities mean the Phoenix Pro range will now extend to 40, 60, 80, 120, 160 and 240 GB models. Remember that OCZ has launched 90 GB and 180 GB versions in addition to a 40 GB version. Like the Vertex 2 range from OCZ, the Phoenix Pro SSD range comes with a firmware allowing you to reach writes of 50,000 IOPS, where the Phoenix and Agility 2s are limited to 10,000 IOPS, which is nevertheless quite sufficient for desktop usage.

25nm 3BPC MLC from IMFT   Posted on 18/08/2010 at 13:47 by Marc

	After having announced a first NAND flash memory chip capable of stocking 3 bits per cell (3BPC MLC) in October 2009, the Intel / Micron joint venture IMFT (IM Flash Technologies), is back with a new chip of this type. The engraving process is down from 34nm to 25nm and capacities range from 4 to 8 GB. This type of memory, also called TLC (triple-level cell) allows, notably, a reduction in die size for identical capacity because it measures only 131mm², against 167mm² for a chip with 2 bits per cell. For comparison, the TLC 4 GB chip at 34nm measured 126mm². This chip is currently at the sample stage, while samples of the standard 25nm MLC were out in February and in production since May. This 25nm 3BPC nand flash should be in production before the end of the year. Note that for now, this type of memory is only available on USB keys, MP3 players and memory cards. In effect, TLC MLC gives lower write performance and reduces the endurance of cells. Although no figure has been given for this chip, at the beginning of 2009 Micron was talking about performance levels being halved and cell endurance divided by 10, which is why it can’t be used with SSDs unless this miracle recipe from Anobit works in practice!