Corsair Force Series F100 100GB SSD Featuring the SandForce 1200

[onethreehill]

We knew going into last week that the first SandForce controlled drive for the consumer market would be in our hands before the weekend. Things got a little sketchy when the drive we were counting on arriving ended up being shipped from Taiwan with a three day service instead of the next day option that a situation like this deserves. How could such a thing happen when no one has performance numbers of the SandForce SF-1200 online and retail products are on the way to e-tail locations as I type? Just when all hope had faded, a lonely delivery driver came knocking to the door like Superman coming to the rescue of Lois Lane. Superman this time was wearing a brown uniform and was empowered by Corsair, not the sun.

http://www.tweaktown.com/reviews/319...200/index.html

[zalbard]

The performance is great, as expected.
But what about the pricing? 300-400$?

[skeyo]

Yep should be in that range I think, because 128gb ones are in that range now.

[Chickenfeed]

Very impressive. I remember reading a preview of a sandforce 1500 based drive so it appears they've improved greatly over the prototype ( since this sf1200 drive is beating the sf1500 prototype ) Assuming the price is right, this might be the drive to get. I'm sorely tempted to snag a x25m g2 though as i've seen them as low as 225 in canada... Im not really keen on paying 2x more for 20gb mroe and slightly higher performance. No doubt about though this is one fast controller

[zads]

Pricing should be slightly more ($25 or so) than an Indilinx 128GB... one pricing settles down and there is availability

[RADCOM]

cheers, the Crucial C300 is looking pretty hot too

[turtletrax]

cheers, the Crucial C300 is looking pretty hot too

Picking up my 256GB tonite

[Telperion]

Looks excellent from that, but I'd like to see some IOMeter tests for average and maximum latency, as well as IOPS numbers.

[Arrowyx]

I can't help but wonder if the drives would be faster using sata 6gbps instead of the sata 3gbps they are shipping with. Still, the results seem impressive enough though without knowing the price I can't really say if they would be a decent value.

[Sam_oslo]

Great performance but the price for the 100GB is same as Crucial RealSSD C300 128GB at my local e-tailer.
Both are great SSD, but going the wrong way, the prices have to go down.

[Musho]

Great performance but the price for the 100GB is same as Crucial RealSSD C300 128GB at my local e-tailer.
Both are great SSD, but going the wrong way, the prices have to go down.

Prices are probably not coming down any time soon. Most likely we'll see price drops at Q4 2010 when Intel introduces new drives with the flash chips made at a smaller process.

[mutantmagnet]

Prices are probably not coming down any time soon. Most likely we'll see price drops at Q4 2010 when Intel introduces new drives with the flash chips made at a smaller process.

I also expect the prices to go down but in any way that compares to what initial reports claimed this new process would bring for future Intel drives? I doubt that.

[situman]

$400 bucks for less capacity than before? Are they insane? Glad the Intel is still hanging in there for a little more than half the price.

[Telperion]

The problem with current generation SSDs (Sandforce, Marvell) is that they're simply not faster in a discernible way from the X-25M but they're double the price and only 25% larger. There are some users who will benefit from the increased sequential speeds, but now that Intel's new RST drivers pass TRIM on to a RAID array, you can get 160GB of X-25M's for the same price and it will thoroughly spank these drives across the board.

[Musho]

The problem with current generation SSDs (Sandforce, Marvell) is that they're simply not faster in a discernible way from the X-25M but they're double the price and only 25% larger. There are some users who will benefit from the increased sequential speeds, but now that Intel's new RST drivers pass TRIM on to a RAID array, you can get 160GB of X-25M's for the same price and it will thoroughly spank these drives across the board.

Quoted for truth. I don't see any use for these drives any more to be honest. I guess it could be the best choice for benchers, or people running the cards in raid on a dedicated raid card. That would lose you TRIM, and these drives are said to not really go down in performance without TRIM, unlike the Intel drives.

[zads]

The problem with current generation SSDs (Sandforce, Marvell) is that they're simply not faster in a discernible way from the X-25M but they're double the price and only 25% larger. There are some users who will benefit from the increased sequential speeds, but now that Intel's new RST drivers pass TRIM on to a RAID array, you can get 160GB of X-25M's for the same price and it will thoroughly spank these drives across the board.

Pricing will settle, they're just high because of initial release and high margin.
Wait til the pricing comes out on SF-1500, that controller costs a hell of a lot more than SF-1200.
(if the retail pricing is up for SF-1500 let me know.. we only have our own oem pricing)

[Telperion]

The OWC Mercury Extreme is the only SF-1500 drive being put into full scale production on the consumer level, the controller cost too much so OCZ and others scrapped it for the SF-1200. Pricing on these will drop some, yes, but not enough to make it a better buy. $4/GB is not a good buy when $2.75/GB gives you a RAID array with better performance in every category and includes TRIM.

[jalyst]

The problem with current generation SSDs (Sandforce, Marvell) is that they're simply not faster in a discernible way from the X-25M but they're double the price and only 25% larger. There are some users who will benefit from the increased sequential speeds, but now that Intel's new RST drivers pass TRIM on to a RAID array, you can get 160GB of X-25M's for the same price and it will thoroughly spank these drives across the board.

Are you sure TRIM pass-through is still a reality for current or coming dvrs?
I'm getting conflicting info on this
http://www.xtremesystems.org/forums/...31#post4308231

And is this pass only for Intel drives, or should it also work just as well for other SSD's?

[jalyst]

@Telperion; did you get this?

Thank-you.

[Telperion]

I don't have a RAID array to test it, I was going by benchmarks in the forums of users with RAID arrays.

[Russian]

Telperion, they do not support TRIM with drives inside of a RAID Array... yet.

[HelixPC]

Crucial C300 had a huge recall, i would stay away from it.

[jalyst]

Telperion, they do not support TRIM with drives inside of a RAID Array... yet.

yeah this is what I've garnered from my readings, but there seems to be a fair few users about who seem confident it's available or will be soon.

[jalyst]

Crucial C300 had a huge recall, i would stay away from it.

But it's not related to this product.

[Russian]

yeah this is what I've garnered from my readings, but there seems to be a fair few users about who seem confident it's available or will be soon.

Soon is a possibility, but its not out now...