All of the SSDs in this series have a 2.5-inch form-factor, capacities range from 128GB to 1TB (128GB, 256GB, 512GB, and 1TB) and for optimum performance you should connect them using SATA 3.0 technology. We are told that whilst other SSDs have been designed for certain applications, this new series should provide great performance across the board.

In terms of tech specs you can expect sequential read speeds of up to 560MB/s and sequential write speeds of up to 400MB/s, also in terms of latency you can expect 0.06ms read speeds and 0.09ms write speeds (lower than any commercially available SSD), there is also a DRAM cache of up to 512MB, TRIM support and SMART reporting.

When you look at day to day usage we are told that optimizations have been made to ensure fast boot times, also transfer rates should still be impressive when working with both compressible and uncompressable data – finally if you are security conscious we can confirm that there is support for encryption.

Exact prices have not been confirmed yet, but we are told to expect $1.10 to $1.30 per gigabyte, so for the 128GB model expect a price of $140 – $166, for the 256GB you are looking at between $281 and $332, just double these prices for the 512GB model ($562 – $664), as for the 1TB model expect anything from $1124 – $1328.

If you want to find out more about the Octane-S2 SSD series head over to Engadget for the full press release, we think that 256GB for around $300 sounds like a good deal, how about you?

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Even with this done, boot up times for Microsoft Windows has always been slow and in most cases slower than Apple Mac’s. A few years ago we installed our first SSD (Solid State Drive) in a Windows computer, and following this we discovered how much faster an OS can boot up using SSD. It was a drastic improvement but also at a much higher price for the drive.

This was followed some years later with our first Mac purchase, the iMac with a normal drive and this booted up really fast in comparison to a Windows machine, which was obviously due to the way the Apple OS boots. With this in mind, we jumped ship and also bought a MacBook Air a little later with SDD. To say it was the fastest boot up yet would be an understatement.

Now we’re in 2011: SSD’s are much cheaper, we have Mac OS X Lion, and Windows 8 has a expected release date of some time in 2012. The battle between Windows and OS X boot up times has stepped up a gear, with Microsoft finally looking to catching up.

You can see a video below this article that shows an official demo of the Windows 8 boot up time, you have to see it to believe it. Just how is this achieved? You’ll want to read this article to find out more.

Could a much faster Windows boot up time make you want to jump from Mac to Windows?

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So what is the OCZ RevoDrive Hybrid? Well it merges the advantages of HDDs and SSDs together to create an affordable solution for those of you who want fast performance and lots of storage, It slots into your computer’s PCI Express slot and gives you 100GB of storage via SSD and a further 1TB of storage via a HDD. Below you can see what the product looks like (we think that it uses the PCI Express x4 slot).

In terms of performance OCZ tell us that “hot” data resides on the ultra-fast SSD, whilst “cold” data is stored on the HDD – apparently advanced caching algorithms learn your computer’s behaviour and enhances your system for responsiveness, which basically means frequently accessed data stored on the hybrid device such as the operating system and application files will be automatically sent to the the solid-state drive, whilst data which you access rarely will be transferred to the hard disk drive.

Specs are a little confusing, but according to the official OCZ press release the RevoDrive Hybrid removes the SATA bottleneck and will allow for bandwidth of up to 910MB/s and is also capable of 120,000 IOPS. Here is what OCZ have to say about its exciting new product:

“The RevoDrive Hybrid leverages the best attributes of both solid state drives and traditional hard drive technology to deliver dynamic data-tiering on a single easy to deploy PCIe storage drive. Leveraging Dataplex software to efficiently manage frequently accessed data delivers superior performance and capacity, making the RevoDrive Hybrid the ideal solution for high performance computing and media content creation.”

By the looks of things there will only be one capacity model available, this will have an MSRP of $499.99 and comes with a three-year warranty. This is not a lot when you consider the prices of SSDs today, let’s face it most of us only want quick boot up and fast loading applications, this hybrid device should allow for this and we think this kind of technology would be great for next-gen games consoles.

Do you think hybrid drives have a strong future?

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All of the PM830 SSDs support the SATA 3.0 interface, which allows for 6Gb/s data transfer, the drives utilize multi-level cell NAND memory chips and the toggle DDR architecture, this is said to deliver double the performance of a SATA 3Gb/s drive – we are told that all of the drives in this series will deliver sequential read speeds of 500 MB/s and sequential write speeds of 350MB/s. In terms of capacity there will be 128GB, 256GB and 512GB options available.

If you are concerned about data security we can confirm that these drives use an AES 256-bit encryption algorithm to protect your data, in terms of performance a quote from the press release reads: “The SATA 6Gb/s SSD shortens system boot-up time to about 10 seconds, while its high-performance allows users to download up to five DVD video files in less than a minute”, it is a little unclear whether this is compared to a SATA 3Gb/s SSD or a SATA 3Gb/s HDD.

Currently prices are unknown, however Samsung seem keen to push these new SSDs towards the premium OEM notebook and tablet market and Samsung also expect its new drives to replace SATA 3Gb/s-based SSDs by the end of the year, we think that depends heavily on price. At first the drives will only be available to OEMs for installation into new computers and devices, however consumers will be able to buy a PM830 SSD to upgrade existing systems in the future.

We have not heard anything in terms of pricing, obviously OEMs will buy in bulk, however we are interested to see how much consumers will have to pay, all we know is what Samsung revealed in a press release, you can see it for yourself here.

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In terms of storage capacities and prices we can confirm that the 60GB model has a suggested retail price of $149, whilst the 120GB model will cost roughly $279, there has also been talk of a 240GB model, however at the time of this post we cannot be sure as to whether or not this will be released, which obviously means we have no idea of pricing either.

All of the SSDs in this series boast write speeds of up to 525MB/s and read speeds of up to 555MB/s, these speeds are possible thanks to the use of ONFI synchronous flash memory, this is said to shine when transferring non-compressible data, which suggests that it should be very good when it comes to moving large video and music files. These SSDs also feature the new SandForce SF-2280 SSD processor and connect to SATA ports at 6Gb/s (SATA 3), these technologies come to together to ensure that boot times, application load times and system response times are far superior to any SATA 2 solid-state drives.

If you do not have a SATA 3 controller don’t worry as all Force Series GT models are backwards compatible with SATA 2 standard, however you must remember that this will have a detrimental effect on performance, therefore if you want the best from your SSD ensure that you are using a motherboard with SATA 3 support. Also if you plan on fitting one of these new SSDs inside your PC you will be glad to hear that they come with a 3.5-inch adapter, as you would expect Force GT SSDs will fit inside any laptop which has a 2.5-inch SATA hard drive bay.

Corsair suggest the Force GT solid-state drives are ideal for high-performance systems, we think that the 60GB drive would be a great primary hard drive for fast performance when used in conjunction with a larger SATA hard disk drive for storage, if you are considering purchasing one of these SSDs you should check out the full release over at Engadget.

Have you switched from HDD to a SSD? If so, what improvements did you notice right away?

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All of these new SSDs are part of the Crucial m4 series, they are all 2.5-inch drives and are SATA 6Gb/s compliant, that said they are also backwards compatible to the 3Gb/s standard, however you will not get the 415MB/s maximum read speed if you are using the older interface.

To make these SSDs so fast Crucial has used high-speed synchronous MLC NAND, optimized NAND management and advanced controller technology. There are four capacities available 64GB (model: CT064M4SSD2), 128GB (model: CT128M4SSD2), 256GB (model: CT256M4SSD2) and 512GB (model: CT512M4SSD2) as you would have probably guessed prices start off affordable, however soon get a bit pricey.

The 64GB variant costs just $129.99, whilst the 128GB model costs $249.99, things get expensive with the 256GB model which costs $499.99 and the 512GB model costs a whopping $999.99. When you look at write speeds you will see that the two larger capacity models are superior and offer transfer speeds of 260MB/s (using SATA 6Gbps), whilst the 128GB model offers writes speed of up to 175 MB/s and the 64GB drive offers write speeds of just 95 MB/s.

If you are looking to buy a solid-state drive you can check out Crucials new offerings here, all of which come with limited three-year warrantys, for the rest of the tech specs check out this fully detailed PDF file.

Will you buy and SSD in 2011?

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Let’s start with a quick overview of the performance specifications, the 256GB Samsung 470 features a maximum read speed of 250 MB/s and a maximum write speed of 220 MB/s, the Corsair Nova V128 features a maximum read speed of 270 MB/s and a maximum write speed of 195 MB/s and the 120GB OCZ Vertex 2 features a maximum read speed of 285 MB/s and a maximum write speed 275 MB/s.

You can two pages of benchmark tests over at NotebookReview, overall the Samsung 470 SSD came out on top as it performed best in the CrystalDiskMark 3.0 benchmark, the Microsoft’s Office 2010 suite installation test, the 7GB file copy test, and the multi task test, however it has to be said that Corsair Nova came close in a lot of the tests.

The OCZ Vertex 2 boots Windows 7 and launches applications quicker than the other two SSDs, however it was a bit of a slouch in the 7GB file copy test, I guess it all depend son what you want from your solid-state drive.

We would love to see how the Samsung 470 compares to Intel’s impressive 510 series SSDs, when we come across a comparison article we will keep you posted.

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There are three videos in total, one of which compares Windows 7 boot time, you can watch the video here, it clearly shows one of Intel’s 510 series shaving 7 seconds of the boot time when compared side-by-side against a 10k HDD.

Another of the videos shows the 510 series side-by-side with a 10K RPM HDD whilst installing Adobe Photoshop Elements, super-fast sequential data transfers allow the Intel’s SSD to complete installation in 1 minute 12 seconds, whereas the 10K RPM HDD takes an extra 40 seconds, you can watch this video here.

Finally Intel show off the 510 series’ gaming proess, below we have embedded a video showing a 510 series SSD running StarCraft II: Wings of Liberty whilst a 10K RPM HDD does the same, it clearly shows the whole process is a lot quicker with Intel’s new SSDs, shaving 22 seconds off what the 10K RPM drive managed.

Obviously to experience the 510 series’ true potential you must be using a motherboard which fully supports SATA 6Gbps, Intel recommend that you use a 2nd-gen Intel Core platform to get the most from these impressive new SSDs.

You can find more about the new Intel 510 Series solid-state drives here, will you upgrade to a 510 series-based system in 2011?

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According to Intel’s press release these 6Gbps compliant SSDs outperform 10,000 RPM hard disk drives by 50% thanks to their super-fast sequential performance, this will undoubtedly attract attention from gamers seeking faster load-times.

All of the 510 Series SSDs support sequential read speeds of up to 500MB/s and sequential write speeds of up to 315MB/s, this trumps one of last year’s best performing SSDs which supported sequential read speeds of up to 355MB/s and sequential write speeds of up to 215MB/s.

Obviously to get the most out of your 510 Series SSD you must be using a motherboard which supports SATA 6 Gbps, Intel unsurprising suggest that using these SSDs in conjunction with 2nd Generation Intel Core processor-based platforms is the best combination, however AMD may have something to say about that.

Retail prices are unknown at present, however if you buy 1000 units you can 250GB models for $584 each and 120GB models for $284 each, all products are covered by a 3-year warranty.

We have highlighted what we believe to be some of the most important information regarding these impressive SSDs, however if you would like to find out more check out this link.

Will you be upgrading to an SSD this year?

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You can see LegitReviews.com’s fully detailed review here, in our article we will summarize what we feel are the most important points raised, let’s start with the SSD’s main specifications and features.

According to OCZ the Vertex 3 Pro offers a maximum read speed of 550MB/s, a maximum write speed of 500MB/s and is compliant with SATA III / 6Gpbs. This SSD uses the SandForce 2582 controller which offers power loss data protection and data recovery protection, also it supports SATA-7 security erase, for more details check out this link, the drive should be pretty reliable as it has a MFTB of 10 million hours.

LegitReviews set up two test rigs for their benchmark tests, you can see the setups here, the biggest difference in terms of SATA technology was that the P67 rig used the ASUS P8P67 motherboard features integrated SATA III / 6Gbps support, whereas the X58 rig’s motherboard only featured 3Gbps SATA, therefore the a SATA III / 6Gbps PCI Express card was used.

You can see the benchmark results for the ATTO Synthetic benchmark here, the CrystalDiskMark Synthetic benchmark here and the AS-SSD Synthetic benchmark here, you soon notice that the Vertex 3 Pro paired with the P67 rig is head an shoulders above the rest, you can see one of the benchmark results charts below.

You can see LegitReview’s conclusion here, on the whole they are very impressed with the Vertext 3 Pro, however they do suggest that you have to use a motherboard with a decent SATA controller to reap the benefits, as we hear details regarding capacities and prices we will keep you posted.

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