Corsair, who most people are familiar with as a memory manufacturer, make a lot more than just RAM. They do all sorts of peripherals like mechanical keyboards, mice and headsets, and they’ve even been branching out into living room gaming kit like the Bulldog and Lapdog; but they also make a wide array of hardcore components to go with their core memory business – like cases, power supplies and cooling fans – and of course, solid state drives.
SSDs, once upon a time, were undoubtedly faster than mechanical drives but plagued with reliability and lifespan issues. Once we got onto the third or fourth generations of flash controllers, they were mercifully as reliable as any other (consumer-grade) disk drives, so the manufacturers could get on with the really important business of making them as ludicrously, blazingly fast as possible.
Corsair’s latest offering, the Neutron XTi SSDs, look pretty fast. Here’s the spec:
Neutron XTi SSD Specifications:
- High Performance Quad-Core SSD Controller: Quad-core processor for top tier performance with low command latency and sustained performance.
- Exceptional transfer speeds: The Neutron Series XTieffectively saturates the SATA 6Gbp/s interface, providing sequential read speeds of up to 560Mb/s, sequential write speeds of up to 540Mb/s, 4KB random reads of up to 100K IOPS and 4K random writes of up to 90K IOPS.
- Consistent Performance: Very high sustained transfer rates are enabled by an expanded cache make it possible to capture and edit professional Full HD and 4K uncompressed video in real-time, as well as play PC games with absolute maximum detail levels.
- End-to-End Data Path Protection (ETEP): ETEP protects the entire data path within the SSD controller. From the host to the NAND gate, ensuring data is protected against corruption.
- Low Power Consumption: 95% less power consumption than standard HDDs means better energy efficiency for your desktop machine and longer battery life for your laptop. Also includes support for DEVSLP (device sleep).
- Power Loss Protection: Data is further protected with advanced SmartFlush™ and GuaranteedFlush™ technologies.
- Enhanced Error Correction: SmartECC™ and SmartRefresh™ features improve data retention and error correction.
- Static and Dynamic Wear-Leveling: The lifespan of the drive and its overall reliability are greatly enhanced by wear-leveling.
- Advanced Garbage Collection: Overall performance and NAND endurance are enhanced.
- Compatible with CORSAIR SSD Toolbox: Access a number of crucial software tools for getting the most out of your SSD.
And once you’ve made your SSDs faster than quicksilver, then it’s time to take on the next limitations: capacity and price. The prices of SSDs have been tumbling in recent years, which takes care of that, and the new Corsair Neutron XTi SSDs will – later in the year – be available in 1.92 TB variants. Imagine being able to bit your whole Steam library on an SSD!
The Neutron Series XTi 240GB is priced at a MSRP of $89.99, the Neutron Series XTi 480GB at $159.99 and the Neutron Series XTi 960GB at $329.99. Pricing for the upcoming Neutron Series XTi 1920GB is yet to be confirmed.
