ASUS has officially launched its PCI-E based ROG RAIDR Express SSD which was first shown off at CES 2013. The company posted details and high resolution photos on its Republic of Gamers blog on Friday.
The new PCI-E-based solid state drive measures 157 x 120 x 20mm and contains 240GB of NAND flash encased in a sleek metal Replublic Of Gamers themed exterior. Specifically, the RAIDR Express uses 19nm Toshiba synchronous MLC NAND flash and two LSI SandForce 2281 SSD controllers. As such, the drive is actually two SSDs that are placed in a RAID 0 configuration for the best performance. ASUS rates the drive at 830 MB/s sequential reads and 810 MB/s sequential writes. The PCI-E SSD is further capable of up to 100,000 4K random IOPS.
ASUS has also included what it is calling a "DuoMode" BIOS switch that allows the drive to be used with either legacy or modern UEFI BIOSes. When the switch is in the EUFI position, PCs with the modern UEFI-equipped motherboards can boot up faster.
Beyond the RAIDR Express SSD itself, ASUS includes the following bundled software packages:
- CrystalDiskMark
- RAMDisk software
- HybriDisk caching software
- SSD TweakIT utility
ASUS is including RAMDisk software that is able to use as much as 80% of system RAM as a virtual drive that can be used to reduce wear on the SSD by using the RAM drive instead of the SSD for writing temporary files and the like. The above mentioned HybriDisk software allows the RAIDR Express SSD to be used as a cache drive for mechanical hard drives up to 4TB in capacity. Users can use the TweakIT utility to manage and optimize the SSD, and the CrystalDiskMark benchmark is being included to allow gamers to run benchmarks on the RAIDR Express to get an idea of its performance.
Oddly enough, ASUS has yet to release specific pricing or availability. More information along with the full press release can be found on the Republic of Gamers blog, however.
With that said, some sites are reporting that the RAIDR Express will be sold for around 440 Euros, which works out to about $600 USD or $2.5 per Gigabyte. Update: Commentor Roberto has pointed out that the RAIDR Express 240GB is available over in Japan for around 39,980 Yen, or ~$409 USD which is a much more reasonable price. US availability and pricing are still just estimates at this point, however. A bit on the expensive side (if the price is true) for sure, but it is nice to see another player in the PCI-E SSD space and it looks to be a speedy drive aimed at ROG fans and enthusiasts.
Also read: Details on a 120GB ASUS ROG RAIDR Express SSD @ PC Perspective.
‘$600 USD or $2.5 per
‘$600 USD or $2.5 per Gigabyte’
Fuck me.
Hi guys,.. Can I put 2 of
Hi guys,.. Can I put 2 of these in my PC?.. I mean 2 way ! 😀 Thanks for answering ! Cheers ! 😀
Yeah, seems too steep. I’m
Yeah, seems too steep. I’m willing to pay a premium, but thats a bit much.
I like the product category,
I like the product category, but that pricing is way off.
Very nice, but the price is
Very nice, but the price is LOL. I know it’s ROG and everything, but this product is about 2 years too late. It’s substantially cheaper to buy 2x 240GB intel 520s or samsung 830s, and that way you get something offering twice the storage, is easily bootable, with higher sequentials, doesn’t take up a pci-e slot. I think ASUS is still trying to figure out the ROG thing. They need to learn that if you price something batshit loco, it needs to be the best, period. Like the intel extreme editions, expensive yes, but objectively the best consumer processors. This drive right here isn’t even close to the best, if two regular SSDs at less than 200 bucks each can beat it.
Well, it is available here in
Well, it is available here in Japan since last weekend.
Wake up and try to get some facts before copy / pasting press releases…
http://akiba-pc.watch.impress.co.jp/docs/news/news/20130726_609309.html
You gotta love those internet “journalists”… What a joke.
Yea… what a joke! How dare
Yea… what a joke! How dare they not read some obscure japanese website (in japanese)! Slow down buddy, you’re sperging all over the place.
If Roberto’s sperg is correct
If Roberto’s sperg is correct (thanks for the term ^) then ~40000JPY is ~400USD, much more reasonable.
Ripoff for 19nm flash
They
Ripoff for 19nm flash
They are using the historic pricing of pci-e ssd’s (which used slc flash or enterprise level mlc flash) to justify $1.67 a GB for sub 1000 write cycle 19mm flash found in value SSD’S.
Also it is not expensive to add a pci-e interfase to a device, if it were, you would not see $30 pci-e videocards.
RAMDisk?
BSOD -> all data
RAMDisk?
BSOD -> all data that were in RAMDisk and not actually written yet gone
SandForce?
Brownout -> oops, you now have an expensive brick in your system
Haven’t seen anything here or on other places about this SSD that indicates it has any kind of protection against bricking due to powerloss during critical writes…
(An UPS may help against losing external power, but does nothing for other ways to lose power)
If it is the same RAMDisk
If it is the same RAMDisk software that AMD's is based on than the latest version can write back changes to the RAMDrive to a hard drive in the background. I have not used the ROG RAMDisk software before though so I can't say for sure if it has this functionality.
There is no backup capacitor like you find on enterprise SSDs though, no.
Seen in other places that it
Seen in other places that it has an MTBF of 620000 hours, which some sites seem to believe is high…
Well… High for a SandForce based solution maybe…
That is the number the ASUS
That is the number the ASUS press release states.
Available in Australia for
Available in Australia for $519 …
PCCasegear
Just wait 3 maybe 4 years and
Just wait 3 maybe 4 years and I’m sure that other developers put other product near like this gadget and this will be much cheaper.
Already ASUS ROG RAIDR Express PCI-E SSD is only my dream but this product is tooooooo EXPENSIVE for me.
Ahhh maybe the Gods hate me
🙁
🙁
🙁