For the past several years, consumers searching through the available selection of Solid State Drive (SSD) storage devices have noticed that capacity continues to favor the hard disk drive counterpart. While it could be a few more years before any SSD matches terabyte capacity with the HDD, Intel's NAND Flash produced at 20nm is closing that gap in terms of price and storage space. In this article, Benchmark Reviews tests the Intel SSD 520 Series Solid State Drive against the leading competition to see if it's capable of delivering SATA 6 Gb/s speeds up to 550 MB/s and 80,000 maximum 4K random write IOPS.

Benchmark Reviews has previously tested the Patriot Pyro SE, a second-generation SandForce SF-2281 solid state drive, which is considered their standard-IOPS enthusiast storage solution. Now we return to test the Patriot Pyro SE, which pushes the throttle on synchronous NAND flash for the best operational performance possible. Patriot rates the Pyro SE to deliver SATA 6Gb/s read speeds up to 550 MB/s with 4K aligned operations reaching 85,000 IOPS. In this article Benchmark Reviews tests the Patriot Pyro SE SSD, 240GB model PPSE240GS25SSDR, against the leading competitors to find out just how much speed and performance this new solid state drive really offers.

Mechanical hard disk technology has been the traditional standard for decades, refined to the point where it can deliver massive storage capacity beyond 3TB. Recently introduced solid-state drive storage solutions have begun pecking away at the market share thanks to their tremendous speeds and operational performance. Each offers an advantage over the other, leading manufacturers to seek out a hybrid solution that delivers quick access and large data capacity. The original 500GB Seagate's Momentus XT hybrid had the right ingredients, just not enough polish. More than a year later, the Seagate Momentus XT 750GB solid state hybrid drive (SSHD) returns with a double-size 8GB SLC NAND flash SSD buffer fused onto a larger 7200-RPM hard drive. Seagate FAST Factor firmware and Adaptive Memory Technology negate the need for third-party software, and makes this an all-in-one hybrid SSD solution. In this article Benchmark Reviews tests the Seagate Momentus XT (750GB model ST750LX003) in single and RAID-0 configurations against its predecessor, and several of the fastest notebook storage devices available.

Back on March 2011, Seagate debuted their original Barracuda XT 3TB hard drive, model ST33000651AS, which used five platters to supply 3000 gigabytes of capacity over a SATA 6Gb/s interface. Seven short months later, they've returned to introduce a replacement: the Seagate Barracuda 3TB hard drive ST3000DM001, which features the same 6 GB/s interface and 64MB cache buffer but now utilizes only three 1GB density platters. Seagate has also introduced a number of refined technologies to help improve overall hard drive performance, including: dual core 40nm processor technology, DDR2 DRAM buffer, and refined caching algorithms. By reducing disc platters from five to three, it prolongs servo motor life and reduces heat output. Benchmark Reviews compared these two hard drives, to see exactly what's been gained.

That moment when solid state drive technology can offer the high capacity of large hard disk counterparts is nearly here. OCZ Technology, a pioneer in the SSD market, combines their experience with both SATA and PCI-Express SSDs to offer the OCZ RevoDrive Hybrid SSD. Based on OCZ Virtualized Controller Architecture technology, RevoDrive Hybrid uses Dataplex caching software to pair a 100GB SandForce SF-2281 SSD to a 1TB 7200RPM hard drive. The results are surprising: a bootable PCI-Express device with the speed of a solid state drive and the storage capacity of a hard disk drive. Join Benchmark Reviews as we test the OCZ RevoDrive Hybrid PCI-E SSD RVDHY-FH-1T.

The SilverStone Treasure TS07 External 3.5" HDD enclosure allows you to grab one of the many 3.5" mechanical hard drives you might happen to have laying around, and use it as instant portable storage as long as you have access to a USB port. This 3.5" hard disk drive enclosure has a black anodized aluminum body with glossy black plastic end-caps and a clear stand. The concept is simple, open the case, plug in your SATA 3.5" drive, and via 5Gbit/s USB 3.0 super speed interface you get access to your data. In this article, Benchmark Reviews plugs the SilverStone TS07 External USB 3.0 enclosure in and tests it out.

EDGE Tech Corporation has been a manufacturer of peripheral computer hardware for two decades, but only recently have they offered enthusiast storage solutions. New for 2011, the EDGE Boost Pro SSD offers SATA 6Gb/s transfer speeds using the latest second-generation SandForce SF-2200 solid state controller technology. EDGE Tech specifies the Boost Pro SSD as capable of 550 MB/s read speeds and 85,000 IOPS write operations. In this article, Benchmark Reviews test the EDGE Boost Pro SSD against the leading competitors and we find out just how much speed and performance this new solid state drive offers.

Solid State Drive storage began as a technology best suited for durable computer devices, then slowly evolved into the notebook and desktop space with affordable high-speed SATA-based SSD solutions. Once SSDs became mainstream for power users, the demand for high-performance workstations and servers soon followed. In this article, Benchmark Reviews tests the OCZ RevoDrive 3 X2 PCI-E workstation-class solid state drive against several enthusiast options. Available in 240-960GB capacities, the model RVD3X2-FHPX4-480G PCI-Express workstation-class SSD uses OCZ's SuperScale storage controller to produce up to 230,000 IOPS with transfers up to 1500 MB/s.