OCZ's new Vector 150 is a direct replacement for the Vector using the same Indilinx controller. The only major change is that flash chips from Toshiba instead of Micron are used.
The Vertex 450 is OCZ's replacement for their Vertex 4 and uses OCZ's own in-house Indilinx Barefoot controller. In our testing, we see performance that matches the Vertex 4, at a lower price. The included TrueImage HD software makes migration easier than before, especially for less experienced users.
Corsair's new Force LS SSD is a value-oriented alternative to SandForce drives. The solid-state disk is based on a Phison flash controller with Toshiba 19 nm flash and delivers quite decent performance.
Plextor's M5 Pro is the company's current flagship SSD, based on a Marvell flash controller and Toshiba 19 nm NAND flash. In our testing, we see solid results that can easily compete with other high-end drives. The included five year warranty is another bonus.
Seagate is trying to establish a strong presence in the SSD market using their new 600 and 600 Pro SSDs, which are based on a Link-A-Media controller. Clocking in at $400 for the 480 GB version, our testing shows good price/performance, at affordable storage cost.
We recently tested the 512 GB version of Toshiba's latest SSD with 19 nm flash chips and a rebranded Marvell controller. Today, we are looking at the 256 GB version to investigate whether the smaller capacity reduces performance, or if it too manages to claim the performance throne.
Crucial's new M500 SSD is built on an upgraded Marvell flash controller with new 20 nanometer 128 Gbit die MLC flash. This combination makes for a very affordable drive that also provides excellent performance in both synthetic and real-life performance testing.
The Samsung 840 SSD is the first solid-state drive using TLC flash technology, which promises higher data density for a lower overall cost. Our testing sees decent performance that turns into "outstanding" when taking into account performance per dollar and price per GB.
Toshiba recently released new solid-state drives based on their own 19 nm flash chips and a rebranded Marvell controller. In our testing, we see amazing real-life performance results that easily beat drives from other well-known vendors, like Samsung, Corsair, and OCZ.
Kingston's HyperX 3K SSD is positioned at a more affordable price level than its blue non-3K sibling. Our performance testing reveals surprising numbers: the drive actually ends up being faster than the regular HyperX.
The Mushkin Chronos 240 GB comes at an amazing price of just $165, which makes it one of the most affordable drives out there if you want to get going with SSDs. But does such a value oriented SSD offer the performance you need?
The 840 Pro SSD is Samsung's current flagship solid state drive. It comes with increased performance and better steady state long-time endurance. We pit the 840 Pro against ten other SSDs, including the OCZ Vector.
The OCZ Vector SSD is based on a brand-new Indilinx Barefoot 3 controller that is a 100% in-house development by OCZ. We see outstanding steady state performance and excellent real-life results from this new drive that will strengthen OCZ's position in the SSD market.
Intel's 330 Series SSD is available in a capacity of 180 GB, which could be the new sweet spot for users who need more than 120 GB of storage. Being based on the Sandforce SF-2281 controller, it offers good performance at a very competitive cost per Gigabyte.
Unlike the majority of SSDs on the market, the MX DS Turbo SLC uses the faster and more durable SLC flash chips. As a result the drive is the fastest SSD we ever tested, and it also comes with improved durability thanks to the different flash type.
Corsair's Neutron GTX SSD uses a new Link A Media SSD controller, which is a great addition to a market that's full of SandForce and Marvell drives. The SSD performs very well in our real-life testing, we also added a new MySQL Enterprise benchmark to the test suite.
The Samsung 830 Series SSD is based on Samsung's own controller design, which uses a triple core ARM processor, promising better stability. In our performance testing we see outstanding results, which makes the drive the fastest one we ever tested, together with the Corsair Performance Pro.
OCZ's Agility 4 is positioned as a high-end, mid-range drive based on Indilinx Everest 2 controller technology. Our real-life performance testing will investigate whether this drive is a worthy opponent of the SandForce drives available on the market now.
Corsair's new Force GS SSD introduces toggle mode NAND flash, which promises increased performance at similar pricing. In our testing we see excellent real-life performance results from this SandForce based drive.
Today we have on our testbench OCZ's 256 GB Vertex 4 SSD, using the latest version 1.5 firmware. In our testing we see excellent performance from this Indilinx based drive. OCZ also brought the price of the SSD down to $210, which makes it one of the most affordable drives on the market both in terms of performance per Dollar and GB per Dollar.
Corsair's Performance Pro 256 GB SSD is based on Marvell's 88SS9174 controller which promises great performance at affordable price levels. In our testing we see the drive claim a leading performance spot thanks to some clever firmware tuning by Corsair.
Kingston is a big name in the memory business and their HyperX system memory is legendary. When they decided to put that name on an SSD many people were sceptical, but it seems Kingston achieved their goal. In our testing we see the HyperX SSD cruise past the competition, making it the fastest SSD we ever tested.
The Silicon Power Velox V30 60 GB SSD is built around Sandforce's successful SF-2281 flash controller which promises outstanding performance and full support for the SATA 6 Gbps interface. After a closer look we noticed that the drive uses only half the flash channels available, will this turn out to be a dealbreaker?
OCZ's Synapse Caching SSD offers a unique way to achieve SSD-like performance for your big hard disk, which could be up to 3 TB in size. In our testing we see a performance improvement of 250% when compared to a SATA 6 Gbps HDD alone.
Intel's 320 Series SSD has been on the market for a while now. Recently the drives were plagued by a series of failures which caused the drive to report as 8 MB. A recent Intel firmware update adresses this issue. The installed the new firmware and gave the drive a spin.
