“Two years ago the best SSD you could buy was made by Intel and it cost $7.44 per GB of MLC NAND. Today Intel is actually the value leader. The 80GB X25-M G2 will set you back $205 at Newegg, or $2.56 per GB. The performance crown now belongs to companies like Micron and SandForce. Although Intel hopes to have performance leadership once more with its 25nm SSDs due out in Q4, the priorities have shifted. Intel’s focus is on bringing SSDs to the mainstream; it wants a bigger slice of the HDD pie. At the end of the day, that’s where the money is.”Here are some more Storage reviews from around the web:
- RunCore Pro V 100GB SandForce SF-1200 @ Tweaktown
- SandForce SF-1200 SSD Firmware Comparison @ Benchmark Reviews
- OCZ Vertex 2 100GB @ Techgage
- OWC Mercury Extreme Pro-RE SSD @ Benchmark Reviews
- A-DATA S501 128GB Marvell Controlled 400MB/s Preview @ TweakTown
- Solid State Drive Performance Comparison Guide @ TechARP
- What is Advanced Format: 4K Sector Drives @ CoD
- SilverStone DS221 External 2.5-inch HDD Dual Bay RAID Enclosure Review @ ThinkComputers
- Hitachi 500Gb Portable Drive External USB 2.0 HDD Review @ Madshrimps
- Seagate Constellation (2TB x 3 Drives) & LSI 3Ware SAS 9750-4i 6Gb/s RAID Card @ Bjorn3D
- Armari BrontaStor 4TE NAS @ HEXUS
- Vantec NexStar CX SuperSpeed Edition HDD Enclosure @ Pro-Clockers
Buying a small capacity SSD on the cheap

Three low cost SSDs are up for review at Ars Technica, the $124, 40GB Intel X25-V, the $95, 30GB Kingston SSDNow V Series Boot Drive and the $85, 32GB OCZ Onyx. They represent three different controllers, the Intel 34nm, a Toshiba T6UG1XBG and the Onyx uses Indilinx Amigos. The testing of SSDs makes the final word on the best drive a little difficult to pen as each controller may excel at some tests and not others. This means that your decision is more heavily influenced by your intend usage of the drive than it is with many other components. One thing to keep in mind before you do choose, as the new 25nm NAND that is appearing is set to drive the price of SSDs down, so in the end AnandTech does suggest waiting a little bit and perhaps doubling your capacity without effecting price.