As we head to the end of 2009 - the truly decent 2.5" SATA SSD's worth buying and give the best bang for the buck can be simplified down to a handful. The broad adoption of Indilinx and Samsung controller chips - combined with ample on-board cache has taken performance to new levels - and leveled out the playing field.

The best value lies in these few drives: An OCZ Agility, A Super Talent UltraDrive ME, The Patriot Torqx or Warp V3 Series, and an OCZ Vertex & Summit -- or perhaps a RAID 0 Apex. The rest of the chart below - from BenchMarkReviews.com - was cropped out - It just wasn't worth bothering with - altho Corsair's latest Samsung/Indilinx models probably should have had a spot on the list, as the still highly respectable Intel SSD G1 and G2 drives.

In the OCZ Vertex drive variants and Firmware Revs shown below - the performance differences may matter only to the incremental Tweaky-Geeks who live by a stop-watch or have bleeding-edge wallets. The designs, controller chips, clock-speed of the flash memory chips used - are all leveling out to a basic commodity used in most of the drives these days. Any of the handful of SSD's above will deliver GREAT performance far, far exceeding your original SATA hard drive.

OCZ ain't the only game in town for solid-state drives. Patriot Memory is aggressively nipping at their heels for mind and market share - and is gunning after OCZ's latest offerings by countering with the Patriot Torqx solid-state drives using the same 'Barefoot' Indilinx controller for comparable performance to OCZ's highly respected Vertex lineup.

As this consolidation in the flash memory drive market continues - and as OEM components used in the marjority of drives becomes more common -- Price, and not 'me too' performance will differentiate variosu brands of drives. Performance will flatline somewhat because they're using basically the same hardware, so a leveling of the playing field will characterize the SSD drive market in late 2009. Several companies are now using the Indilinx or Samsung controller chipset - and regardless of brand - you'll love the smooth performance!

On the low-end, JMicron is revising it's somewhat dissapointing controller chip with a redesign and larger cache. Should help with occasional SSD Write issues and noticeably improve SSD performance on the value end of the market.

Coming later this year: At Computex, OCZ pre-announced its OCZ Colossus and Cascade SSD line - which will feature dual Indilinx controllers and a JMicron RAID chipset to deliver huge storage capacity, stunning performance, and the drop-in ease of a standard 3.5" form factor for desktop systems.

For those of us with more meager budgets and smaller needs - OCZ has revamped it's mid to 'low-end' lineup with an affordable MLC drive: Check out these prices on OCZ Agility Series SSD drives. This 'value' drive is nothing-to-sneeze-at with an improved controller chip and decent cache. Peak read performance reaches 220Mpbs altho it's write speeds are more modest - just under the Apex SSD line. The Agility series is likey to make a phase-out of the Core and Solid SSD lines highly likely as technology marches on.

Coming down the pipe: OCZ's latest SSD iteration, the OCZ Summit Series SSD pushes MLC solid state technology to the next level with a larger 128mb buffer size and using Samsung's state of the art controller chipset and NAND flash modules (vs 64mb buffer and Infilinx controller used in the already admirably performing Vertex series.)

As we've seen before in OCZ's lineup: The larger 120GB and 250GB SSD's have different, better, faster peak Write specs than the smaller 60GB model. (200Mbps writes for the larger drives vs. 125Mbps for the 60GB) -- tho all claim 220Mbps Reads. These larger size drives aren't shipping yet at Amazon.com, but the 60GB version is listed as 1-3 day shipping.

Patriot's new FUSION series SSD with 64MB of DRAM cache is the next in their lineup. As with other new models of solid-state disk drives arriving for Summer 2009 --upping the amount of the onboard DRAM cache buffer is giving SSD manufacturers an easy way to increase overall write performance and data transfer rates.

Much as with traditional spinning platter drives - and the use of cache in general when it comes to computers - cache behaves rather predictably: A little cache helps ALOT, a bit more helps a bit more incrementally -- but at some point the performance curve tends to flatten out very quickly.

Part Number	Description	UPC
PFZ256GS25SSDR	Patriot Fusion 256GB SSD	0879699008242
PFZ128GS25SSDR	Patriot Fusion 128GB SSD	0879699008211
PFZ64GS25SSDR	Patriot Fusion 64GB SSD	0879699008204

Hot on the heels of OCZ's announcement of thier upcoming Z-Series PCI-E card SSD - SuperTalent is joining the fray with a PCIe RAID 5 SSD solution up to freakin' 2TB. It's a good thing they won't be shipping these for another month or two: Give's ya'll time to fatten up your WALLET first 'cuz these SSD slot mounted multi-drive cards are gonna set you back several grand...



PQI has announced a rather interesting line of upcoming solid-state storage products an Express Card SSD for laptops with pop-out optional USB connector, and an external SSD drive with both flip out external eSATA and USB for maximum versatility.

G.Skill announced it's upcoming FALCON series SATA II SSD recently -- with impressive performance numbers to rival OCZ's VERTEX which also uses the Indilinx controller. No surprise since we're simply hitting a point where the chip sets inside a solid-state disk will largely determine core benchmarks, and other aspects of Firmware and amound of onboard cache will be marginally incremental in tweaking SSD thruput #'s only to a minor degree.

G.Skill Falcon FM-25S2S-128GBF1

All things being relatively equal, we'll rapidly hit a point in the SSD market where given tiers of SSD's will start seeing rather predictable performance. As SSD's commoditize, PRICE, WARRANTY, TECH SUPPORT and the perceived value of the BRAND in the consumer market to become the differentiators as the raw numbers start to equalize.

Technological advances to the Solid-State SSD disk storage market are a good thing. The vengeance with which these drives are being analyzed to within a nano-second of thier lives is not. The average, normal person is simply looking for a way to pep-up their aging laptop computer with a much faster replacement SSD drive. Or businesses are simply investing in ways to make their Servers handle transactions more smoothly with a Solid-State drive.


But leave it to the TWEAK-GEEKS to overanalyze this exploding SSD market to death. These guys - and they ARE guys - you'd think they were re-living their teenage dream-car, hot-rod rods by jamming the disk-bashing benchmark rulers are far into their pubic bones as possible to get to the TRUTH about what solid-state drives are packin'.

Let's keep it simple: SSD's start your computer faster than you knew possible, your applications open in a literal 'flash' of high-speed memory cells, and most will realize what a sluggish bottle-neck their old, spinning-platter hard drive really was. We'll be glad we upgraded to an SSD and then the rest of us simply get back to running our biz and personal lives, managing our correspondence and entertainment with satisfying responsiveness.

Here at www.ssd-solid-state-drives.com the point is to simply point out that SSD storage is here, it's performance is already great and getting better, it's easy to find an exceptional deal on one - and is a worthwhile, AFFORDABLE upgrade to an aging computer. Hard drives die from mechanical failure at an alarming rate - and if your's starts to croak or gives you the dreaded CLICKS OF DEATH - consider an SSD. The solid-state drive market has really come together in 2009 and has a long, long future ahead of it.

As of Spring 2009, the Vertex solid-state drive is OCZ's top performing MLC SSD drive. A next-generation controller chip coupled with 64mb of onboard cache gives this SATA II solid-state disk superlative Read - and most importantly - equally impressive Write performance. The OCZ Vertex line delivers a VERY, very fast SSD to rival the one to beat: the Intel X25-M 80GB MLC drive -- but the Vertex delivers 120GB of capacity for about the same amount of money.

Today, OCZ announced a "Mac Edition" model of the Vertex supposedly certified by Apple. Whether there's special Firmware tweaks involved to optimize performance on Mac OS X 10.4 Tiger or 10.5 Leopard was unknown till a day or two later: Supposedly the Mac version's quoted speeds are throttled back a bit to better match OSX's drivers. This isn't THAT big of a deal, OCZ did the same detuning to the Apex Firmware to make it perform better OVERALL rather than appease the flat-out fastest of the benchmarking NERDS who are out to shave precious micro-seconds off their trivial geeked-out lives. Regardless, the Vertex is faster than snot, affordable - and most importantly -- it's nice to have OCZ recognize the value in speaking to Apple Computer's ever-growing market share.

On Monday March 30, 2009 - Western Digital acquired solid-state disk drive maker SiliconSystems for $65 million. WesternDigital - the current market leader in 2.5-inch computer disk drives now has a way into the growing SSD market. SiliconSystems makes SSD products for communications, industrial, embedded systems, medical, military, and aerospace. SiliconSystems' acquired product lineup includes solid-state drives with a variety of interfaces, including SATA, EIDE, PC Card, USB, 2.5-inch, 1.8-inch, and Compact Flash.

There was a time in the traditional hard disk drive industry when there were many players: Kalok, Quantum, Maxtor, Micropolis to name but a forgotten few that vanished, were acquired, or simply became a leveraged brand name. Spinning platter drive companies have been basically reduced down to the Big Four: Hitachi, Western Digital, Seagate and Samsung.

In the Solid-State Drive market you have very different players: the few MEMORY and CONTROLLER CHIP manufacturers around the globe where the guts of what's inside SSD are spec'd by a hanful of companies Intel, Micron, Samsung, and Indilinx. In exemplum, Samsung seems happy to OEM to lesser but recognizable brands. Intel SSD's are being rebranded by Kingston Memory and A-Data - but it's moot if they don't have a lower street price than Intel's. So what's the point there?

There'll be ruthless fallout and consolidation to come, great SSD's, mediocre performing SSD's, grey-box generic SSDs with the same guts as 'The Brands You Know - And Trust". And the difference between the OEM SSD and the Popular brands may only be in the packaging, marketing, and depth and length of warranty. The solid-state disk market is like it's hard platter drive counterpart - SOLID-STATE STORAGE ALREADY IS AND WILL BE A MASSIVE COMMODITY MARKET - that will inevitably have razor-thin margins but become a billion-ssd-drives-per-year industry where there's plenty of razor-thin slices of pie to go around.

As this site matures, www.solid-state-drives.com will be tracking SSD prices and new and ongoing SSD rebates a bit more clearly on the main page. Rebates are a great way to buy the best performing SDD's at the lowest cost per gigabyte.

These days SSD rebates are often very short lived, have a narrow range of purchase dates that may be limited to a singe week, and must be mailed in and postmarked rather shortly after purchase as well. And many rebates and their forms are Retailer specific. They're literally 'banking on' and hoping you WON'T submit your rebate properly, won't provide the right form and proofs of purchase, and won't do it within specified time limits. So beat 'em at their own game, read the fine print, and double-check everything before mailing it in.

Currently, rebates on SSD disks are ranging from $10 on 30gb/32gb SSDs up to $50 on the latest high-capacity 256gb SSDs. The savings can lower your solid-state drive cost from 15%-20% per gigabyte with good timing. Middle of the pack performing MLC-type SSD's are now easily had for about $2/gig with careful rebate shopping and timing. Higher performing and higher-capacity MLC SSD disks are still in the $3-$6/gb range. And the top Read/Write benchmarks you can only achieve with single-layer SLC SSD's still command $10 or more per gigabyte.

A 1st-generation Apple G5 1.6ghz iMac makes a good candidate for a Solid-State computer disk drive upgrade. As the original model - the lowliest and slowest of the iMac G5 family, Mine was beginning to show it's age. An upgrade from it's original 80gig SATA drive to a 250gig 7200rpm 8mb cache drive helped, but now with smaller capacity 30-64GB SSD disk prices hitting new bargain lows it deserves one last breath of new life.

These early generation G5 iMacs are a breeze to upgrade. 3 screws and pop off the back lid. A few more to remove and swap the SATA drive takes mere minutes. Finding an ICY DOCK MB882SP-1S 2.5" to 3.5" SSD & SATA Hard Drive Converter to fit the 3.5" drive bay was easy enough, and barely cost $25 shipped using competitive priced 3rd-party sellers at Amazon

Taking advantage of OCZ's current SSD rebates - I found a dirt-cheap low-cost OCZ 30gig Solid Series SATA 2.5-Inch Solid State Drive that cost $75 after rebate.

Granted, 30GB isn't much drive space these days, and the "Value priced" Solid Series from OCZ is only a respectable middle-of-the-road performer for an MLC SSD in 2009: 150mbps peak Reads, 90mbps Writes. For this backup Mac I keep on-hand, truly bleeding edge SSD speed doesn't matter. And is well matched to the SATA I controller chip of those iMacs anyways.

A clean OS X 10.4 Tiger install on an SSD takes much less disk space than 10.5 Leopard, and all I really need from this system is occasional access to web, email and Microsoft Office. It's also used a test-bench Mac for starting up other G3-G5 Macs in an emergency using FireWire target mode, remotely running disk diagnostics and system updates. An SSD and it's high read speeds is PERFECT for quickly running installers and applying updates.

Long story short, this cheap little bargain SSD drive UTTERLY REVITALIZED an aging Mac: Startup speed, app launching, and switching programs feels nothing short of amazing. It's still easy to push the old single G5 processor to 100% CPU utilization on some tasks, but at least now the drive is no longer the sluggish bottleneck it once was. Total project cost: About $100 - and well worth it.

To get to the next level of performance in its SSD disk line-up; the new Apex series SSD is using two JMicron JMF602 Flash controller chips along with a JMB390 RAID chip. The Apex series is effectively a pair SSDs in RAID 0 "Stripe" configuration across the 2 banks of MLC flash RAM. At the top end you’ll see that the RAID setup helps the OCZ OCZSSD2-1APX120G 120GB SATA 2 Apex Series Solid State Drive and 250GB models attain a Write speed of "up to 160MB/s". But note in fine print the 60GB model has a Write speed of "up to 110MB/s" so there's a bit of an overall performance ding with the low-end, most affordable Apex model.

Solid-state memory-chip based drives are somewhat Operating System Independent: And can be formatted for Mac OS X, Linux-Unix, or DOS/Windows with standard formatting utilities. For Apple Macintosh users pondering a replacement solid-state disk drive upgrade - here's a few insights as to which Mac's are easy to access and do a drive swap with - and those which are a NIGHTMARE to gut to even get to the internal drive:

SOME MACS ARE EASY TO SSD UPGRADE SOME NOT:

EASIEST APPLE SSD DRIVE SWAPS:
G5 Mac Tower or Mac Pro Intel: Slide in 3.5" adapter mounted SATA drives.
G5 Early iMacs: 3 Screws to remove back panel, fairly easy SATA to SSD swap with 3.5" adapter.
G4 Towers: Use ATA SSD's - Usually swapable with 5 screws or so.
Classic White Intel MacBook: 3 Screws under battery to access 2.5" SATA drive.
New Aluminum MacBook and MacBook Pro SSD Upgrade : EASY access under battery cover.

SLIGHTLY DIFFICULT:
Titanium PowerBook: 7 Torx screws on bottom plate, reasonable ATA 2.5" SSD swap
Mac Minis: G4's use ATA, Intel models use SATA. Tricky to pop the case, tight bit of work

ONLY FOR BENCH TECHS
Early Aluminum PowerBooks whether G4 or Intel, Nerve-wracking a bazillion micro-screws
G3 and G4 iBooks: Major dissassembly often required, let a PRO do it.
Intel G5 iMacs with foil-wrapped sheilding and innards, pain in the ass

These latter Mac's are a daunting dissassembly task - not for the casual consumer to try to attempt.

CONFUSED YET? -- Keeping up with SSD products and drive developments isn't easy. OCZ is kind of complicating things with it's SSD product line and naming scheme.

It would be nice if SSD manufacturers could establish some sort of benchmark standard - and name drives accordingly. Sometimes part numbers containing an 'S' or an 'M' give a clue as to whether top-performing SLC memory is used vs. more affordable MLC memory. Or perhaps drives could be numbered by their max Read speed benchmarks: i.e. We need something like the 150 Series for up to 150mbps reads, the 200-Series for 200mbps, etc. But no. Intel ain't doing too bad with it's simply divided product line: XM - MLC 'Mainstream' series or XE - SLC 'Enhanced'. Pelican SSD's are broken into the value MLC 'Pelican' models and the high-flying SLC 'Eagle' Series.

OCZ is kind of complicating things with it's SSD product line and naming scheme. We started with the Core Series then the Core Series V2 - then to the Solid Series then the Vertex Series and now to the Apex Series. But what do these names MEAN?!?

Core: 155 Read - 90 Write
Solid: 170 Read - 98 Write
Vertex : 200 Read 170 Write - 64Mb Cache Onboard
Apex: 230 Read 160 Write** (Write speeds revised LOWER to 120 in shipping firmware. OCZ opted to reduce peak Writes to minimize intermittent 'stuttering' problems exhibited in the JMicron controller chips.)

OCZ OCZSSD2-1VTX30G 30GB SATA 2 Vertex Series Solid State Drive Touts 200MB/sec Read, 170MB/sec Writes... so in a way it is their current best OVERALL performer using an Indilinx controller.


60GB Apex Series Solid State Drive will debut just under $300 The Apex line oddly NOT the peak of performance compared to the Vertex: It still uses a less-than-optimal JMicron controller - but compensates with 2 banks of MLC NAND flash in an internal RAID 0 config to get the most performance at a lower-cost.

Tom's Hardware mention's a great new 2-drive SSD adapter-enclosure RAID product from A-Data - slip 2 2.5" solid-state drives into this to have a standard 3.5" form-factor module to install into a desktop PC. It's innovation is an external hardware sitch to choose between JBOD, RAID 0, RAID 1, Span, SAFE33, SAFE50, or GUI modes. Nice!