Solid state disks might not have hit a shock-free price yet, but they’re now at least starting to rival your average hard drive in terms of both speed and capacity. The latest SSD to attempt to show the mechanical hard drive the door is Corsair’s 256GB P256, where the P stands for Performance.
As with Corsair’s previous 128GB S128 drive, the P256 is based on Samsung NAND chips, as well as a Samsung controller, which sets it apart from many other SSDs using JMicron’s JMF602 controller, which OCZ has now abandoned as well. What’s more, the P256 features a native command queuing-enabled controller, along with 128MB of DRAM cache. Corsair says that the latter “contributes to outstanding, stutter-free performance.”
All of which looks as though it adds up to an incredibly fast SSD, and Corsair’s quoted figures even suggest that it out-perform Intel’s flagship X25-E when it comes to sequential write speeds. Corsair quotes a maximum sequential write speed of 200MB/sec, compared with Intel’s quoted speed of 170MB/sec for the X25-E. However, the P256’s quoted maximum sequential read speed of 220MB/sec is a little behind the 250MB/sec speed quoted for the Intel drive.
Either way, Corsair is making some bold claims about the speed of this SSD, and the company says that these speeds are likely to be consistent too. Corsair says that the drive offers “near instant access times and rapid read and write performance,” adding that this performance “is consistent across the entire capacity of the SSD.” The result of the fast SSD, according to Corsair, is a PC where “games and apps load faster and Windows feels snappier and more responsive.”
Corsair says that the P256 is due to be launched on 10 April and the company tells us that a P256 has been sent out to bit-tech today, so look out for some test results in the future.
Now that SSDs are offering fast speeds and high capacities, are you considering ditching your hard drive for an SSD, or is the technology still too expensive? Let us know your thoughts in the forums.
As with Corsair’s previous 128GB S128 drive, the P256 is based on Samsung NAND chips, as well as a Samsung controller, which sets it apart from many other SSDs using JMicron’s JMF602 controller, which OCZ has now abandoned as well. What’s more, the P256 features a native command queuing-enabled controller, along with 128MB of DRAM cache. Corsair says that the latter “contributes to outstanding, stutter-free performance.”
All of which looks as though it adds up to an incredibly fast SSD, and Corsair’s quoted figures even suggest that it out-perform Intel’s flagship X25-E when it comes to sequential write speeds. Corsair quotes a maximum sequential write speed of 200MB/sec, compared with Intel’s quoted speed of 170MB/sec for the X25-E. However, the P256’s quoted maximum sequential read speed of 220MB/sec is a little behind the 250MB/sec speed quoted for the Intel drive.
Either way, Corsair is making some bold claims about the speed of this SSD, and the company says that these speeds are likely to be consistent too. Corsair says that the drive offers “near instant access times and rapid read and write performance,” adding that this performance “is consistent across the entire capacity of the SSD.” The result of the fast SSD, according to Corsair, is a PC where “games and apps load faster and Windows feels snappier and more responsive.”
Corsair says that the P256 is due to be launched on 10 April and the company tells us that a P256 has been sent out to bit-tech today, so look out for some test results in the future.
Now that SSDs are offering fast speeds and high capacities, are you considering ditching your hard drive for an SSD, or is the technology still too expensive? Let us know your thoughts in the forums.
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