On paper the PEX PLX8613 PCIe bridge chip, which allows the Marvell 9123 SATA controller to use a single PCIe 2.0 x1 lane to connect to a SATA 6G drive for a maximum bandwidth of 500 MB/s, looks like a great idea. It doesn’t allow for the full 600MB/s that the SATA 6G specs allow for but certainly sounds faster than the previous 300GB/s maximum. As listeners of the live Podcast last night heard, the reality is not as nice. Using system RAM as a cache, along with no actual indications of increased transfer rates has disappointed Ryan sorely. See the full details in his preview.
“SATA 6G technology is being paraded around by motherboard manufacturers as one of the main reasons to upgrade your motherboard in the coming months but do the advantages really make the upgrade worthwhile? And how do these current SATA 6G implementations actually work? We look at the ASUS P7P55D Premium and an early sample of a Seagate SATA 6.0 Gb/s hard drive to see how the hype stands up.”Here are some more Storage reviews from around the web:
- Seagate Barracuda XT 2TB: SATA 6Gb/s Performance Preview @ AnandTech
- Seagate Barracuda XT 2TB SATA 6 Gbit/s Hard Drive Performance @ Tweaktown
- Kingston SSDNow V Series 40GB Boot Drive @ Futurelooks
- Fusion-io ioXtreme SSD Sneak Peek & HH Video Podcast @ HotHardware
- The SSD Improv: Intel & Indilinx get TRIM, Kingston Brings Intel Down to $115 @ AnandTech
- OCZ Technology Agility 120GB 2.5-inch Solid State Drive @ Tweaktown
- Intel’s 34nm TRIM Firmware & SSD Toolbox @ Techgage
- Seagate Cheetah 15K.7 SAS 15,000RPM Hard Drive Review @ Benchmark Reviews
- Western Digital’s Caviar Black 2TB hard drive @ The Tech Report
- Seagate FreeAgent Go 320GB Portable Drive Video Review @ eTeknix
- Coolmax CN390 NAS Enclosure @ Pro-Clockers
- KingWin F-35U-BK 3.5″ Black USB 2.0 External Enclosure Review @ OverclockersHQ
- Antec Easy SATA Review @ OCC
- ioSafe Solo: Water and Fire Proof Storage @ X-bit Labs
- SanDisk Extreme Pro Compact Flash Memory card @ TechwareLabs
- Seagate FreeAgent Go Dock+ Portable HDD Docking Station @ Tweaktown