Content and news by Robert Tanner

SSDs are expensive and often don’t offer enough capacity to meet user needs. The recent SSD caching craze attempts to alleviate both these issues, but OCZ has done one better. Combining a RevoDrive 3 with a 1TB HDD the RevoDrive Hybrid offers a self-contained SSD caching solution that is guaranteed to work.

By now, solid-state drives shouldn’t need any introduction. The performance, latency, power, and even longevity of most SSDs easily exceeds that of a traditional hard disk drive – but so does the price. Perhaps this is why the solid-state caching phenomenon has seemingly exploded, with just about every SSD manufacturer and…

SandForce is back in town and it’s here to stay. Intel’s 520 Series is a full replacement for the 510 Series, but utilize the SF-2281 controller and custom Intel firmware to deliver one of the best SSDs we seen to date. If you already want an Intel SSD but don’t know which to get, we can answer that. Oh, and did we mention the 5 year warranty?

If you’re presently looking to buy an SSD, Newegg and Intel are running a promotion that is sure to clear out some inventory. For two more days Newegg is selling the Intel 320 Series 80GB SSD for just $70 with free shipping, after a $50 mail-in rebate. Intel is not known for their competitive pricing so this deal may have something to…

It seems just about everyone has begun 2012 by releasing firmware updates; as usual many are to resolve those pesky, newly discovered BSoD problems that have plagued just about every SSD at one time or another. Here’s a short summary of recently announced firmware updates for Crucial m4, Samsung 830, and OCZ Octane users.

In what is sure to be a very confusing mix for some of subtly different names, Kingston has launched the SSDNow V+ 200 series of solid-state drives. Kingston first began utilizing SandForce controllers in the premium HyperX SSD line, delivering some of the absolute best performance we had seen to date from a single SSD.

In what has to be a blur of names for regular users, OCZ Technology is launching the Petrol SSD family. Enthusiasts may still recall the recently launched Octane family, which harnessed the next generation of Indilinxcontrollers to deliver reasonably high levels of performance. Simply put, Petrol will be the…

It’s been a while since we last took a look at a Crucial product, so for the next one, how about we make it interesting? SSDs aren’t uncommon, but high-end SSDs that don’t feature a SandForce controller are – and of course, that’s what makes Crucial’s m4 notable. Does its lack of a SandForce controller hold it back? Let’s take a look.

OCZ Technology has just updated its Talos line of Enterprise SSDs. Second-generation Talos 2 drives will utilize a dual-ported SAS 6G configuration. Where the previous Talos drives were stuck in a 3.5″ form factor, Talos 2 will be a 2.5″-sized drive yet offer capacities ranging from 100GB up to an impressive 1TB in size.

Kingston has recently announced the replacement of the SSDNow V100 Series SSDs, aptly named SSDNow V200. Kingston makes a point to state the V200 promises to deliver “nearly twice the performance, up to 20% lower price than the V100”, and as such the V200 comes readily equipped with a SATA 6Gb/s interface.

What could possibly be better than 1.5GB/s throughput from a PCIe-based solid-state drive? How about 1.9GB/s and even more IOPS? OCZ Technology is announcing the expansion of its Max IOPS branding to its already compelling RevoDrive 3 family. As with the Vertex lineup of SSDs, the Max IOPS editions will utilize premium…

At its annual tech summit held a couple of weeks ago, ASUS talked in great detail about what’s coming to its X79 mobo line-up. Certain NDA’s have not yet lifted, but we can talk about a few of the new things ASUS is introducing, and also take an early look at four of the company’s X79 motherboards.

Sparked by the recent success of the third Humble Bundle release, a new group has emerged offering its own collection of DRM-free indie PC games. For the next four days Indie Royale is offering A.R.E.S. Extinction Agenda, Gemini Rue, Nimbus, and Sanctum games, with a bonus of a free Sanctum DLC made available…

OCZ’s acquisition of the SSD controller company Indilinx is finally beginning to pay off. The company has unveiled its own long-awaited Indilinx-powered successor to the venerable “Barefoot” controller design seen in drives such as the original Vertex, which at the time was the first SSD to go toe-to-toe with Intel’s own SSDs.

Well, that didn’t take long. SandForce SSD users will be happy to learn that the company has reportedly been able to duplicate and resolve the longstanding, if uncommon BSOD issues that have plagued select users of the SF-2281 controller. Although the root cause is a firmware issue, the BSOD problem…

OCZ Technology has made a new name for itself with solid-state drives, and isn’t showing any signs of slowing down any time soon. The company has just announced that it has signed an agreement to pick up a design team and select IP assets from the UK division of PLX Technology, a SoC design company.

Kingston may of been fashionably late to the SandForce party, but its explanation for wanting to avoid the issues that have (and still) plague other manufacturers is sound. Its first SandForce offerings appropriately fall under the HyperX branding, and offer speeds to take full advantage of the new SATA 6Gb/s bus.

At IDF, Intel officially launched the enterprise SSD 710 Series, and went on to further reveal “Cherryville” and “Hawley Creek” SSD codenames along with some juicy details; most notable being the information regarding Cherryville. Cherryville is the planned successor to the Intel 510 Series SSDs…

Just weeks after the launch of Kingston’s first SandForce SF-2281 solid-state drive with the HyperX series, the company is now announcing the launch of its SSDNow KC100 lineup targeted at business and enterprise solutions. KC100 is a 2.5″ SSD powered by the latest generation of SandForce’s award-winning controllers…

OCZ Technology has announced its Indilinx Everest solid-state drive platform. Enthusiasts may recall it was only a few months back that OCZ, in a surprise move, acquired Indilinx as part of OCZ’s strategic transition away from the memory market to SSDs. The Everest controller is the direct successor to Indilinx’s well-regarded…