This post was written by Carrie Smith
Intel X25-M SSD costs a lot and the capacity is nothing compared to much cheaper hard drives, but that’s always been the case with SSDs – you should only ever buy them for their speed. While the X25-M does itself no disservice, it’s quite clear that if game loading times and windows boot times are your priority then buying an SSD doesn’t really gain you that much, if anything. All in all, this drive probably strikes the best balance between price, performance and capacity to suit most enthusiasts’ needs.
Western Digital VelociRaptor is the fastest SATA hard drive in the market and it even surpasses the performance of the fastest SSDs, in some cases. No longer is the Raptor a conventional 3.5in hard drive, instead the mechanics are stored inside what looks like a standard 2.5in notebook hard drive chassis with the rest of the VelociRaptor’s bulk being made up of an enormous heat sink. Add to this the fact it has a capacity of 300GB and costs only £150 and we can’t recommend it highly enough.
The OCZ 64GB SATA II SSD is undoubtedly very expensive and won’t even be worth considering for most. However, if you do have deep pockets and want the ultimate performance from your desktop or notebook, then this drive is the way to go. Shock resistance is first rate as the drive can still operate, even when a force of 1500G is applied to it. It looks quite nice in its brushed aluminium livery but essentially this is a functional bit of kit.
Patriot’s Warp V.2 stands out among solid-state hard drives due to being inexpensive. The only test on which it showed a benefit was the transfer speed benchmark. The Patriot delivers on its promise to access data quicker than the standard 5,400rpm Fujitsu drive, but still can’t quite keep up with the 7,200rpm Seagate Momentus, even though the difference is far from severe. In the battery drain test, the Patriot drive lasted the least amount of time, shutting off at the 86-minute mark.
SMART Modular Technologies (WHH) Inc., a leading and independent manufacturer of memory modules, solid-state storage products, embedded computing subsystems and TFT-LCD display products has recently launched six new, 1.8 inch and 2.5 inch SSD’s for various Embedded, Industrial, Defense, and Server Applications. Some of the highlighting features of these drives are low power consumption, increased performance, high capacity, and unmatched security. The company has launched these drives under the Xceed family of its industrial grade storage solutions. The 2nd generation products have broadened the company’s SSD product offerings. All the new storage products are launched under the brand names of XceedLite, XceedUltra, XceedUltraX, and XceedSecure.