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We reviewed our first SandForce-based solid state drive about a month ago and since then the SandForce drives we have checked out have either been 120 or 128GB drives.  While these are nice drives many people still cannot afford them.  Today we will be looking at a 60GB drive that is based on the SandForce controller.  The 60GB size is perfect for most systems as you can fit most of your programs and operating system on the drive then just use a regular SATA drive for all your media and other things.  The 60GB size is also great for upgrading your laptop’s hard drive.  Let’s check out the G.Skill Phoenix Pro 60GB Solid State Drive. Special thanks to G.Skill for providing us with the Phoenix Pro 60GB Solid State Drive to review.

A little over a week ago we had the opportunity to review our first SandForce-based solid state drive the Corsair Force Series F100. If you have been following solid state drives at all you know that many drive manufactures are dropping the controllers from Indilinx and going with these new SandForce controllers

Up until this point the solid state drives we have looked at have been limited to the SATA 3Gbps standard. While solid state drives are still much faster than normal hard drives we haven’t been able to really push them to their limits. There is where SATA 6Gbps comes in; basically you are getting 2X the speed of SATA 3Gbps

At CES every solid state drive manufacturer we met with was raving about the SandForce controller, the new controller that is going to bring blazing speeds to solid state drives and bring current solid state drives in the budget category with these new drives being in the enthusiast category.  The controller from SandForce is the SF-1200 which is a small step down from the enterprise SF-1500 controller.  Corsair has designed a new line of solid state drives around this controller called the Force Series, which is available in 100GB and 200GB versions.  Today we will be looking at the 100GB version which boasts very impressive very impressive read and write speeds at 285MB/s and 275MB/s respectively.  Let’s check it out! Special thanks to Corsair for providing us with the Force Series F100 100GB Solid State Drive to review.

External storage is still very important to a lot of people.  Especially people who use external storage for transferring files between 2 different computers or people use it for a work machine and a home machine.  2.5-inch hard drives have been overlooked for a while now, but since solid state drives use that form factor SilverStone has released the DS221 which is a dual bay 2.5-inch external hard drive enclosure that supports RAID.  Let’s take a look… Special thanks to SilverStone for providing us with the DS221 External 2.5-inch HDD Dual Bay RAID Enclosure to review.

External hard drives are still used quite often, I actually have 4 external hard drives hooked up to my main machine right now. External hard drives are very popular because they are easy to install (just plug them in) and make it so you can transfer files between 2 machines with ease.

Recently Indilinx, the makers of the ever-famous Barefoot solid state drive controller have released a new controller called the Barefoot ECO. This new controller allows drive manufacturers to use 32nm Intel NAND flash instead of the typical 40nm NAND flash we are used to seeing on previous solid state drives. These smaller flash chips have a smaller production cost, which will bring down the cost of the drives.

Large volume external storage has also been and will remain to be popular just for the fact that many people do not have room inside their cases for extra hard drives.  Also external storage allows you to easily use that storage on multiple systems with minimal effort.  With the introduction of eSATA external drives can now be just as fast as internal drives so we have seen quite a few eSATA external enclosures released lately.  Today we will be taking a look at the MB561US-4S-1 Quad Bay External Enclosure from ICY DOCK that features an internal port multiplier and both eSATA and USB 2.0 connections.  Let’s take a look… Special thanks to ICY DOCK for providing us with the MB561US-4S-1 Quad Bay External Enclosure for review. Features – 3 Speed Adjustable Cooling Fan, including auto setting featuring Smart Cooling Technology – 4 Bay 3.5” SATA I / II removable external hard drive enclosure support SATA hot-swap.

The Barefoot controller from Indilinx was all the rage last year, it was on many solid state drives we reviewed including the Crucial M225 and both the OCZ Vertex and Agility .  It seems this year SandForce is getting a lot of attention, but don’t forget about the Barefoot controller.  Indilinx’s new Barefoot controller, called the Barefoot ECO allows drive manufactures to use the 32nm Intel NAND flash rather than the 40nm NAND we are used to seeing in other Indilinx-based drives.  Because of the smaller production process of the NAND chips this brings down the cost of the drive.  Today we will be taking a look at the 128GB Nova Series Solid State Drive from Corsair that is based on Barefoot ECO controller and is less expensive than other drives based on the older Barefoot controller. Special thanks to Corsair for providing us with the Nova Series 128GB Solid State Drive to review. Features – Maximum sequential read speed 270MB/second – Maximum sequential write speed 195 MB/second – Indilinx Barefoot controller and MLC NAND flash for fast performance

Smaller 2.5-inch hard drives have become very popular because of the introduction of solid state drives a few years ago.  Since then the drives have come down in price and many people are purchasing their first solid state drive.  Many cases do not have a spot to mount a 2.5-inch hard drive, although some new cases do a good amount do not.  For this reason Thermaltake has come out with the Max 4 hard drive rack.  It supports 2 2.5-inch SATA drives and features tool-free hard drive installation.  Let’s take a look at the Max 4 and see it is perfect for your new solid state drive! Special thanks to Thermaltake for providing us with the Max 4 2.5-inch Hard Drive Rack to review. Features – Supports dual 2.5” SATA hard drive