Intel 520 Series 120GB $189.99

Posted on March 6, 2012 by admin

intel-520Intel’s latest and greatest has arrived – with SandForce performance coupled with Intel reliability. With this deal you can take $40 off the list price and get an OEM version of the 120GB capacity for just $189.99! Continue reading →

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Crucial m4 128GB $162.14

Posted on March 6, 2012 by admin

Crucial m4This is the best deal we’ve seen yet on the 128GB Crucial m4 including free shipping from Amazon.com. The Crucial m4 is also know by the name Micron RealSSD C400–it’s the same product, but the Crucial brand is targeting consumers while the C400 is an OEM model, which is a bit odd considering that the C300 was sold under this name to consumers. At any rate it is a fast SATA III 6GBps drive that delivers excellent read/write performance that will make a night-and-day difference over your old HDD setup (or even an older SSD).

  • Storage Capacity: 128 GB
  • Maximum Read Transfer Rate: 415 MBps (up t0 500 MB/s with Firmware 0009)
  • Maximum Write Transfer Rate: 260 MBps
  • Interface: SATA III 6 GBps (backwards compatible with SATA II)
  • Compatible Drive Bay Width: 2.5″ (3.5″ mounting kit included)
  • Form Factor: Internal

The drive comes in the standard laptop form factor (2.5″ 9mm) but is also supplied with a kit for mounting the unit in a 3.5″ hard drive bay.

List Price: $ 222
Price: $ 162.94

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Corsair Force Series 40GB $89.99 – Save $30

Posted on September 21, 2011 by admin

Corsair Force F40 40GBAs the name implies, the Corsair Force series is powered by a SandForce SSD controller, which is the current market leader. One of the advantages with SandForce is that drives built around this controller don’t suffer much at all performance-wise when you go down to smaller capacities, which is a problem with drives utilizing other controllers with dedicated DRAM (SandForce doesn’t use a DRAM cache). This makes the small-capacity drives with this controller optimal for use as an affordable and ultra-fast boot drive, for storing the operating system on as well as some of your most frequently used apps.

To make matters even better, M-wave is currently selling the 40GB SATA II Force series for $30 below list price, which as far as we could tell is the lowest price to date on this drive.

List Price: $119.99 Price: $89.99

Buy From:

Corsair hasn’t hesitated to deliver the drive with a full three-year warranty, so for most users, this drive is likely to outlast most of the other components in your computer. For a SATA II drive, the sequential read and write speeds are as good as they get–280MB/s read and no less than 270MB/s write. It also produces 50,000 IOPS in random 4k writes (aligned). All in all, very impressive specs for such an affordable drive.

Full Specifications:

  • Warranty Three years
  • Form Factor: 2.5″
  • SSD Unformatted Capacity 40 GB
  • Max Sequential Read/Write (using ATTO Disk Benchmark) 280 MB/s sequential read — 270 MB/s sequential write
  • Max Random 4k Write (using IOMeter 08) 50k IOPS (4k aligned)
  • Interface SATA 3Gb/s
  • Technology High-reliability MLC NAND flash
  • Form Factor 2.5 inch
  • DRAM Cache Memory No
  • Weight 80g
  • Voltage 5V ±5%
  • Power Consumption (active) 2.0W Max
  • Power Consumption (idle/standby/sleep) 0.5W Max
  • S.M.A.R.T. Support Yes
  • Shock 1500 G
  • MTBF 1,000,000 hours
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Kingston SSDNow 96GB Bundle $125.98 – Save $124!

Posted on May 31, 2011 by admin

Kingston bundleThis neat little upgrade bundle from Kingston with a blazing fast 96GB SSDNow V+ is currently going for $175 on Amazon.com (list price: $249) PLUS a mail-in rebate worth an additional $50 leaving the final price tag at just $125.98 including Free shipping! The package includes, besides the solid-state drive, an installation guide, system cloning software, an external drive enclosure, as well as mounting brackets, and cables–everything you need to easily setup your new, significantly faster system without the need for a complete reinstall of your operating system.

Kingston’s SSDNow V+ offers 230MB/sec read and 180MB/sec write speeds over the SATA II 3GBps interface. It is also backed by a three-year warranty. It comes in the usual 2.5-inch form factor, meaning it will fit in any laptop or any desktop PC chassis, and in the latter case you can use the included mounting bracket to fit it in a regular hard drive slot.

Moreover, the 96 GB SSDNow V+100 includes the industry standard Self-Monitoring Analysis Reporting Technology (SMART) technology that alerts you to problems before they happen. It’s also the perfect solution for systems that don’t support the TRIM command (which maintains high performance over time) as it comes with its own set of garbage collection features.

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Corsair Force F80A (80GB) $176 – Save $43

Posted on April 6, 2011 by admin

The Corsair F80A is one of the latest SSDs from Corsair – the ‘A’ at the end signifies that it uses the latest 25nm NAND flash memory modules. Performance compared to the other drives in the Force series is however unchanged and very high. It’s based on the SandForce SF-1200 controller (SSD processor) that pushes the limits of what the SATA 2 inteface is capable of. With a SandForce-based drive, you get the best possible performance and reliability over the SATA 2 interface.

As opposed to other drives, lower capacity does not affect performance–the SSD performs equally well even at smaller capacities, which is partly due to the fact that SandForce drives do not require DRAM cache to provide optimal performance. They “just work”. Like other drives in the series, TRIM support and and Garbage Collection is included, both features that keeps your drive performing well in the long run.

This deal (no coupon required) is an equivalent of 20% off the list price on the Force F80A.

  • Maximum sequential reads: 280MB/second
  • Maximum sequential writes: 270MB/second
  • MTBF: 1,000,000 hours mean time between failures

List Price: $ 219.99

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Crucial RealSSD C300 256GB $455 – Save $59

Posted on March 30, 2011 by admin

c300Crucial’s RealSSD C300 series was early on the scene with SATA 3 6GBps support that kicked every other solid-state drive down a notch. The 256GB version is the ultimate combination of value for money and scorching-fast speeds of up to 355MB/s (sequential reads).

With the new updated m4 drive in the pipeline, the C300 series is now going for less, in spite of being an incredibly competent drive. It is also worth noting that the C300 (as opposed to the new C400) uses 34nm NAND, which is more durable than the current-generation 25nm.

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Intel 510 Series 250GB Deal: $608 – Save $74

Posted on March 12, 2011 by admin

Intel510 SeriesAt long last, Inte’s next-generation SSDs are finally available. The 510 series delivers an astonishing 500MB/s sustained sequential reads over the SATA 3 6GBps interface. It is no less impressive in sequential writes – 315MB/s.

It’s important to note that Intel does not use the new 25nm NAND flash memory modules, but sticks with the tried and tested 34nm chips in its 510 series. Regardless of the marketing hype, 34nm flash is considerably more durable than the newer generation.

Intel has delivered ‘solid’ solid state drives in the past and continues to do so according to early tests by Anandtech among others. It is not the fastest 2-5-inch SSD on the market, but it comes close, while at the same time offering a considerable advantage in reliability compared to some of its competitors.

  • Sustained sequential reads up to 500MB/s and sustained sequential writes up to 315MB/s
  • Life expectancy is 1.2 million hours mean time between failure (MTBF)
  • The drive also comes with Intel’s proprietary Data Migration Software that clones your current hard drive or SSD including the operating system and all files, saving you the cost of purchasing cloning software from Acronis or Norton separately.

The drive was just released, but the price tag has already been reduced by more than $70.

List Price: $682.00

Price: $608.99

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Kingston SSDNow V 30GB $69 – Save $54

Posted on March 1, 2011 by admin

ssdnow-30The 30GB Kingston SSDNow V-series SSD doesn’t offur much in the way of storage space, but it’s more than enough for your operating system and a few apps and games that you use frequently. This makes it a highly affordable boot drive – install Windows, Linux or OS X on it and store your videos, backups and other space-consuming content on another internal or external hard drive, while enjoying all the perfomance benefits of an SSD for your core system. It also fits nicely in a netbook with low storage requirements.  This deal cuts almost half of the list price on the drive.

  • 180 MB/sec read and 50 MB/sec write speeds
  • SATA 2 Interface : 1.5 GB/sec and 3.0 GB/sec
  • 2.5″ form factor

List Price: $ 123.99

Price: $ 69.67

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OCZ Agility 3 120GB $159.99

Posted on February 17, 2011 by admin

agility3The Agility 3 is a lightning-fast SSD based on the SandForce SF2281 controller, but unlike its “big brother” in OCZ’s lineup, the Vertex 3, the Agility uses asynchronous NAND Flash modules that cost less and is a bit slower in the IOPS department, but it makes up for it with a much more attractive price tag. With this deal it is even more attractive: $169.49 including free shipping, which appears to be an unmatched offer at this writing.

In terms of performance, the Agility 3 is still one of the speediest drives on the market, with sequential reads and writes of up to 525MB/s and 500MB/s respectively. For random 4K writes it puts out 50,000 IOPS sustained up to a 80,000 IOPS maximum. These numbers are valid when running the drive over its native SATA III 6Gbps interface, although it is fully backwards compatible with the older SATA II standard.

Specifications

  • SATA III/6Gbps interface backwards compatible with SATA II/3Gbps
  • ECC Recovery: Up to 55 bits correctable per 512-byte sector (BCH) (varies depending on exact configuration)
  • Certifications: RoHs, CE, FCC
  • Form Factor: 2.5 inches
  • Life Expectancy: 2 million hours Mean Time Before Failure (MTBF),
  • Max Read: up to 525MB/s, Max Write: up to 280 MB/s, 4KB Random Write: 50,000 I/O Per Second (IOPS), Controller: SandForce 2281
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Crucial RealSSD C300 128GB $239 – Save $52

Posted on February 4, 2011 by admin

Best price yet on the 128GB ultrafast SATA 6Gbps C300 drive from Crucial! The C300 reaches breakneck speeds when employing the latest SATA interface – read speeds up to 355MB/s! This drive will also run just fine over SATA 2 (see specs below,) but it actually breaks the speed barrier of the SATA 2 interface, so ti utilize its full potential you will need a motherboard that supports SATA 3.

List Price: $ 291.99
Price: $ 239.99

Drive Specifications:
Sequential Read: 355MB/sec (SATA 6Gb/s) 265MB/sec (SATA 3Gb/s)

Sequential Write: 140MB/sec (SATA 6Gb/s) 140MB/sec (SATA 3Gb/s)

Power Consumption (Active): 1.7W read, 3.1W write

Power Consumption (Idle): 0.092W

Max Shock Resistance: 1500G / 1.0ms

Max Vibration Resistance: 2-500Hz at 3.1G

Features:
Micron MLC NAND Flash Marvell Controller SATA 6 Gb/s interface RAID Support ATA-8 w/ TRIM Self-monitoring, analysis, and reporting technology (SMART) command set Random 4k READ: 50,000 IOPS Random 4k WRITE: 30,000 IOPS Built-in EDC/ECC.

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