Until SSDs can safely prove that they're a reliable long-term media for Enterprise storage, the Serial Attached SCSI (SAS) interface owns the market share for server storage. Until Seagate launches their Solid State Drive counterpart, the 600GB Seagate Cheetah 15K.7 SAS Hard Drive ST3600057SS delivers safe and affordable high-capacity storage to data servers and Enterprise environments. The 4Gb/s FC or 6-Gb/s SAS 2.0 interface allows the perpendicular storage technology to deliver 15,000 RPM data bandwidth for an industry-leading 1.6-million-hour MTBF. In this article, Benchmark Reviews tests the Seagate Cheetah 15K.7 SAS hard drive against a wide variety of storage solutions.

OCZ has earned the pole position in the race for Solid State Drive consumer supremacy. Most of the OCZ SSD product line is sold at retail to enthusiast end-users, but the EX-series offers SLC construction and delivers premier performance to the Enterprise sector and an affordable price. Corporate environments offer vast potential for SSD technology by offering drive performance faster than SAS-based storage, and dramatically reducing heat output. In this article, Benchmark Reviews tests the 60GB OCZ Agility EX SSD OCZSSD2-1AGTEX60G, and Indilinx-based SLC Solid State Drive.

Enthusiasts are no stranger to RAID arrays. While server administrators depend on the redundancy of RAID-1 and other safe multi-drive configurations, performance enthusiasts are willing to risk it all for the promise of twice the normal performance from a striped RAID-0 array. To enjoy the added speed there must be two identical drives to which the data can split and write to each drive in stripes. Solid State Drive products already come at a premium over their hard drive counterparts, and most enthusiasts save up for just one SSD to help launch their computer system into hyper-speed. In this article, Benchmark Reviews tests two 64GB Samsung-based Corsair P64 CMFSSD-64GBG2D MLC Solid State Drives configured in a RAID-0 array for top performance.

The competition among Solid State Drive manufacturers is reminiscent of the video card wars between AMD and NVIDIA a few years ago. The invention of new controller technology has slowed somewhat, while each company races to combine high-speed NAND with custom firmware tweaks to produce the fastest SSD speeds possible. The Indilinx Barefoot controller has exploited a dominant hold over the consumer SSD market during the past several months, and 'overclocked' Solid State Drive products are beginning to replace 'new' product designs. In this article, Benchmark Reviews tests the fastest MLC SSD we've discovered to-date: the 256GB eXtreme-edition Corsair X256 CMFSSD-256D1.

Early on in their debut, Solid State Drives were planned as included equipment on new computers coming from tier one manufacturers such as Dell, HP, and Apple. In one way or another they made good on their word, but the inflated price for these premium options made SSDs a distant reality. This situation created the perfect condition for a enthusiastic upgrade market. Not surprisingly, manufacturers went after the individual consumer after losing traction with mass system builders, and upgrade kits became the obvious solution for many enthusiasts. Kingston is well known for manufacturing their own memory products, but when it came to the new SSD technology they turned to proven sources such as Samsung. In this article, Benchmark Reviews tests the Kingston SSDNow V+ Series 64GB SATA-II MLC SSD SNV225-S2/64GB.

Benchmark Reviews recently reviewed the SilverStone SUGO SST-SG06B Case, and supplied with that product was the SST-SOD01 kit. As was mentioned in that review, the case supports only slim optical drives. The SST-SOD01 slim drive kit we received is actually the Panasonic UJ-875A Slim Optical Drive manufactured for SilverStone. Since many of you will undoubtedly be looking to purchase the SUGO SG06 case or another small form factor case, you will need a slim optical drive. Benchmark Reviews offers for your consideration the Panasonic UJ-875A 8X DVD +/- RW Slot Loading Slim Optical Drive with SATA interface and DVD-Burner capabilities.

Until 2009, Solid State Drive (SSD) popularity was only growing in the elite enthusiast circles. Then along comes the Indilinx Barefoot chip, which quickly became the backbone SSD controller for over a dozen different products. Crucial, being The Memory Experts that they are, have returned to the market with their second SSD product. By most accounts, this isn't par for the course when you consider how often the competition reveals a new product line. Equipped with the test-proven Indilinx Barefoot controller and 64MB of DRAM buffer, Crucial is insured that the M225-series will deliver outstanding performance. Benchmark Reviews tests the bandwidth speed and IOPS performance for the Crucial M225 128GB SATA-II SSD CT128M225 against a large contingent of desktop storage products in this article.

With generation 3 guidelines for the 6.0 GBps SATA interface already being used in prototype motherboards for show at the not-so-distant 2010 CES in January, it's understandable to see the speeds of Solid State Drive products increase so quickly with each new model. The Indilinx Barefoot controller has become the backbone chip for over a dozen different SSD models, first introduced in the OCZ Vertex SSD, and now make a return appearance in the OCZ Vertex Turbo SSD series.

Identical to the popular OCZ Vertex SSD in every aspect except NAND selection, the Vertex Turbo SSD series offers the same Indilinx 'Barefoot' controller and 64MB of DRAM buffer, but now boasts ultra-fast 270/200 MBps read and write speeds. Benchmark Reviews tests the reaction time and bandwidth performance for the 120GB OCZ Vertex Turbo SSD OCZSSD2-1VTXT120G model against over two dozen other storage products in this article.