Corsair Unveils New Flash Storage Solutions

In their long list of new product announcements today, Corsair is also upgrading their top performance SSD drives lineup with the release of the Neutron XT SSDs. We already reviewed the drive and all of its available capacities (240GB, 480GB & 960GB) roughly two months ago, so this announcement is merely for the availability and MSRPs. For those who need a quick refresher, the Neutron XT is the first commercially available SSD with Phison’s S10 contoller, which is equipped with Toshiba’s A19nm NAND. The Neutron XT didn’t set any new records in our tests, but it was a solid middle-class performer and I’ve been told Corsair is looking into new firmwares to further improve the performance in the future.

The Neutron XT will be available immediately with MSRPs of $150 for 240GB, $270 for 480GB and $540 for 960GB. I would have liked to see a bit more aggressive pricing because the Neutron XT isn’t fast enough to compete with the 850 Pro and Extreme Pro, but as it stands the Neutron XT is a decent option for those who seek for something in between the value and high-end drives. 

Gallery: Neutron XT

Furthermore, Corsair performed a major overhaul of their USB 3.0 drives. The company released two new USB 3.0 flash drive families, the Flash Voyager Slider X1 and Flash Voyager Slider X2, and upgraded the Flash Voyager GS and Flash Voyager GTX families.

The Flash Voyager Slider X1 and X2 are visually similar and both are available in capacities between 16GB and 256GB. The difference is their maximum speed, with the X1 and X2 capable of maximum read speeds of 130MB/s and 200MB/s respectively. Of course, both drives are backwards compatible with USB 2.0 equipment but their performance will be limited by the USB 2.0 interface.

Flash Voyager Slider X1 Flash Drive

Flash Voyager Slider X2 Flash Drive

Corsair also upgraded the Voyager GS and Voyager GTX series and reduced their price a little. The Voyager GS is the high capacity series of the company, with the drives ranging from 64GB up to a whooping 512GB. Voyager GS drives have read speeds of up to 260MB/s and write speeds of up to 105MB/s. The Voyager GTX on the other hand is the performance-oriented series. Only two Voyager GTX drives are available, a 128GB and a 256GB version. Both drives have an integrated SSD data controller that allows them to reach read and write speeds up to 450MB/s and 200MB/s respectively.

Flash Voyager GS Flash Drive

Flash Voyager GTX Flash Drive

Samsung Releases External T1 SSD

Traditionally the external flash storage space has been run by so called second tier OEMs that basically just buy the controller and NAND from third parties and then do the chassis design and assembly on their own. With the introduction of the T1, Samsung becomes the first tier one manufacturer to enter the external SSD market. Hardware wise the T1 is based on the 850 EVO, meaning that the T1 uses 32-layer TLC V-NAND and the same full-fledged MEX/MGX SSD controller. The housing is considerably smaller than a regular 2.5″ chassis, though, making the T1 a very portably solution (although a USB stick would be even more portable, but fitting and cooling a full SSD controller in such design is fairly difficult).

The T1 support USB 3.0 UASP mode for increased performance and for sequential performance Samsung is promising up to 450MB/s. Random performance comes in at 8K IOPS for read and 21K for write. There is also AES-256 encryption support, which is definitely handy for business users that handle sensitive data. The drive comes pre-formatted as exFAT to ensure out-of-the-box compatibility with both Windows and OS X based systems. 

The available capacities will be 250GB, 500GB and 1TB with the MSRPs being $180, $300 and $600 respectively and a 3-year warranty. The pricing is definitely a bit high, but since we are dealing with MSRPs things can change very quickly and I wouldn’t draw any final conclusions yet. I have samples waiting for me when I get back, so stay tuned for our review in the next few weeks.

SanDisk Announces Entry-Level SSD Plus & Ultra II mSATA

Back in September SanDisk launched the Ultra II for the mainstream market and it’s been doing pretty well in the market so far. Today here at CES SanDisk is announcing a new entry-level member to its client SSD family, which is simply called the SSD Plus. Quite surprisingly, the SSD Plus isn’t based on TLC NAND, but uses SanDisk’s second generation 19nm MLC NAND instead, similar to the high-end Extreme Pro. SanDisk didn’t really go into detail about the hardware itself, so at this point I’m not sure where the cost savings are coming from (perhaps it’s just lower binned MLC). The controller remains a secret too, although given SanDisk’s history I’m pretty confident that it’s a Marvell silicon with SanDisk’s in-house firmware. 

Availability is slated for this quarter (Q1’15) and the SSD Plus will only be available in capacities of 120GB and 240GB due to the entry-level focus. MSRPs are $70 and $110 respective with a warranty of three years. I’m still trying to wrap my head around the technological placement of the SSD Plus as it seems a bit weird to have MLC in the entry-level offering and then TLC in the one level up, but I should have a better understanding of the product once I have a sample on hand.

In addition to the SSD Plus, SanDisk is also announcing an mSATA version of the Ultra II. The core architecture remains unchanged as it’s just a different form factor, although interestingly enough the mSATA flavor features less over-provisioning and is available in capacities of 128GB, 256GB and 512GB (whereas the 2.5″ Ultra II is 120GB, 240GB, etc…). MSRPs are $74, $116 and $221 respectively and availability is Q1’15.