Although there is no mention that the product even exists on Corsair's own
Website, U.K.-based online retailer,
Scan, purports to now be selling a 128GB solid-state drive (SSD) from Corsair. As a matter of fact, Corsair's site makes no mention that the company has even entered into the SSD market; albeit, such a move is a logical choice for a memory manufacturer, as other memory makers, such as Crucial, Kingston, and OCZ, have already made the plunge into SSDs.

This new mystery drive is listed on Scan as the "
CMFSSD-128GBG1D." The drive is a 2.5-inch, SATA-II-based SSD with a stated maximum sequential read speed of 90MB/Sec and a maximum sequential write speed of 70MB/Sec. The drive is based on multi-level cell (MLC) NAND flash memory and uses a Samsung controller. Scan claims that the drive has a "
100+ Year Life Expectancy (MTBF)," which strikes us as perhaps a bit overly opportunistic of the drive's potential
lifespan. Scan is selling the drive for £259.12 (not including value-added-tax), which converts to about $356.42 in U.S. dollars.
Hexus points out that it was a good decision on Corsair's part to go with a Samsung controller and not a controller from JMicron. As
Anandtech discussed as long ago as last September, MLC-based SSDs that use JMicron controllers have displayed problems in the form of "
random write issues." This problem, commonly referred to as a "stutter," has been cited from multiple
sources.
Hexus further reports that while Crucial's current SSD has rather pedestrian read and write speeds, Crucial already has its "
second generation" SSDs in the works for a debut sometime later in 2009, with read and write speeds more inline with enthusiast SSD offerings, such as what
Intel offers. In fact, Hexus claims that these second-generation drives will be capable of faster than 200MB/Sec read and write speeds; and perhaps somewhere down the road, a third-generation of SSDs will even be capable of 400MB/Sec read speeds.