4-Way SSD Round-Up, OCZ, Corsair, Kingston, ST

Name: 4-Way SSD Round-Up, OCZ, Corsair, Kingston, ST - Page 2
Brand: 4-Way

by Marco Chiappetta — Friday, May 15, 2009, 12:30 PM EDT

If you remember back to January of this year, Corsair quietly launched a 128GB SSD. Like that drive, the recently released P256 model features Samsung technology, but with a new controller and integrated cache that should offer significantly increased performance.

Corsair P256 SSD

The drive you see here is branded as a Corsair S256, but the official name of the product, now that it has hits store shelves, is P256--the "S" was changed to a "P". As the product name implies, the drive features a 256GB total capacity, with SATA 3.0Gb/s connectivity, and a heavy-duty aluminum enclosure.

With the P256 disassembled, you can see the PCB and new Samsung S3C29RBB01-YK40 controller used in the drive as well as the drive's 128MB of on-board cache memory. As you can probably guess, Samsung MLC flash memory is also used in the drive, and if you look close, you can see that the memory chips are double-stacked to acheive the 256GB capacity.

Corsair P256 SSD

Specifications and Features

Model

CMFSSD-256GBG2D
Device Type: Internal Solid state disk (SSD)
Architecture: MLC

Expansion / Connectivity

Form Factor: 2.5"
Capacity: 256GB
Interface: Type SATA II

Dimensions

Weight: 0.18 lbs.

Performance

Max Shock Resistance: 1500G
Power Consumption (Active): 1.5W
Power Consumption (Idle): 0.15W
Sequential Access: Read 220MB/s
Sequential Access: Write 200MB/s
MTBF: 1,000,000 hours

Corsair's specifcations for the drive claim sequential read and write speeds of 220MB/s and 200MB/s, respectively, with max shock resistance of 1500G and a mean time before failure of over 1 million hours.

Tags: SSD, Kingston, OCZ, Corsair, Storage, Super Talent

Marco Chiappetta

Marco's interest in computing and technology dates all the way back to his early childhood. Even before being exposed to the Commodore P.E.T. and later the Commodore 64 in the early ‘80s, he was interested in electricity and electronics, and he still has the modded AFX cars and shop-worn soldering irons to prove it. Once he got his hands on his own Commodore 64, however, computing became Marco's passion. Throughout his academic and professional lives, Marco has worked with virtually every major platform from the TRS-80 and Amiga, to today's high end, multi-core servers. Over the years, he has worked in many fields related to technology and computing, including system design, assembly and sales, professional quality assurance testing, and technical writing. In addition to being the Managing Editor here at HotHardware for close to 15 years, Marco is also a freelance writer whose work has been published in a number of PC and technology related print publications and he is a regular fixture on HotHardware’s own Two and a Half Geeks webcast. - Contact: marco(at)hothardware(dot)com