Strontium is not on the radar of most consumers and the Hawk Series SSD we received is our first official look at one of their products. They say first impressions are everything and we were immediately taken by the styling off the drive as soon as we opened the package. With a SF-2281 controller running the show, does the performance match the beauty? Have a read to see.
If, like us, you’re ready for something fresh in the SSD market you’re in for a treat. Corsair has launched their Neutron series of SSDs with a brand new controller from Link_A_Media Devices and the results of our benchmarks show it to be a serious competitor. Should the other drive makers be looking over their shoulder? Have a look to see what we have to say about it.
Have a spare hard drive laying around you’d like to put to use? Ever thought of wrapping it in cardboard as a makeshift enclosure? Probably not. Although Convar has with their very eco-friendly and cleverly designed BytePac drive enclosure made of nothing but recycled raw material cardboard. Intrigued? We were, so we asked for a sample to have a look. See what we thought!
ADATA markets the SX900 line of SSDs as the “most powerful SSD on Earth” which is a bold statement and bound to catch the attention of potential customers. Being powered by the SF-2281 controller through a SATA III interface, we expect high performace but is it really the best and what about the TRIM issue that has recently cropped up? Read on to see what we have to say about both questions.
With all of the SATA III drives coming out with regularity, those with older SATA II hardware might be feeling a little left out in the cold. Never fear, Crucial has a line of V4 SSDs in various capacities that are SATA II based with peformance that’s admirable. How did it fare? Have a look at the article to see the numbers and our impressions.
Have an old SATA or IDE based hard drive laying around that needs to be wiped or mined for valuable files? Maybe you have laptop and want to backup data to another hard drive but only have a internal drive on hand. If so, StarTech has just the thing for you with their USB 3.0 to SATA/IDE HDD Dock that allows the user to connect it via USB. See what we think about it in our review.
It’s extremely easy to carry around gigabytes of data on storage devices in our pockets or bags and it’s equally as easy to have that storage device lost or stolen. All the more reason to protect that data by using a device that secures your data without the hassle of extrernal contrivances that get in the way. Kingston’s DataTraveler Locker+ G2 USB 2.0 flash drive is well suited to protect your data at a reasonable price – but will it come at the expense of performance? Read on to see.
If you thought you couldn’t afford a decent SSD, you may just be wrong. Kingston’s V200 series drives are aimed at the cost conscious consumer yet carry some nice performance numbers of 300MB/s reads and 190MB/s writes. With pricing well below $1 per usable GB, there’s little reason to sit and wait on a spinning platter drive. Check out the specifics like the nicely appointed bundle in the article.
As the population of Mac computers grows, so does the third party add-on market. Increasingly, mobile computers are getting smaller like the MacBook Air and with the smaller size comes less port availability. Satechi aims to help expand the number of USB ports available to you in a small, easy to carry form that also matches many Apple computers. Have a look to see what we thought of it.
Now that USB 3.0 devices are starting to become more and more prevalent, the need for open ports to plug them in grows. All the while, mobile computers are getting more and more compact, offering fewer ports. Satechi may have a solution with their colorful four port USB 3.0 hub. While it offers additional ports, will it muck up the USB 3.0 speeds in the process? Have a look to see.
Admit it. You’ve often wondered what would happen if you took an SSD controller, like the SandForce SF-1200, crammed it into a thumb drive with gobs of NAND and let it run wild with an eight channel architectural design. Well, now you no longer have to wonder because we’ll show you what happens when we put the USB 3.0 Express RC8 50GB flash drive from Super Talent to the test.
Kingston did a fabulous job with their HyperX SSD, earning our Editor’s Choice award last year. They’ve taken that same formula, dropped the endurance of the NAND along with the price, and give it a little different color scheme to offer up the HyperX 3K drive. How does it compare in performance to the original HyperX 5K drive as well as the other drives we’ve tested? Take a peek to see!
Don’t look now but here comes another SandForce SF-2281 drive, this time by SanDisk. This is the first time we’ve had our hands on an SSD from SanDisk but are very familiar with their other products. Can their expertise in the storage industry help their Extreme series drive top the performance charts? With high-density, Toggle Mode NAND and read and write specifications of 550MB/s and 520MB/s, we think it’s got a shot. Check out the full review to see.
Mushkin is best known for their memory products and while they don’t have an expansive line of SSDs, they offer a drive for just about every type of user. The Chronos MX is not their flagship drive but chews up some serious data with popular SF-2281 controller under the hood. How does it compare with the long list of SandForce drives we tested? Have a look!
Just about every gaming geek secretly hopes for a zombie apocalypse. After all, most have been training for it, at least virtually, for quite some time and it’s seen an explosion in pop culture popularity. Continue reading “And it Begins…”.
