SSD Flash Drive Reviews

Corsair Storage Solutions Extreme Series X64 64GB (CMFSSD-64D1) Indilinx MLC SSD Drive Review

*Best Rated SSD Drive* If you have been debating getting on the solid state disk (SSD) drive bandwagon while technology evolved, and matured the Indilinx Barefoot SSD Controller has brought that evolution to the SSD market. With a 90nm fabrication process (slightly outdated) and a 256Kb cache this allows the controller to operate with a stutter free performance compared to a JMicron JMB322 Controller with 16Kb of cache (causes system stutters under load, 1/16 the cache of he Indilinx). Once you read through this article you will understand why this drive is our best rated SSD Drive.

Right from the start when formatting the Corsair X64 64GB (CMFSSD-64D1) it quickly lived up to its "Extreme Series" name. I was amazed at how much faster it was compared to my current Windows Vista Ultimate x64 SP2 boot drive which is the G.SKILL FM-25S2S-64GB JMicron JMB322 Controller based SSD. The speed in the benchmarks were also consistent highly then the results achived with a JMicron based based drive, in fact the Corsair X64 was 63.1% percent faster!

Corsair X64 Features & Specifications:

• Maximum sequential read speed up to 220MB/s (We tested it at up to 234.3MB/s, ave 216.3MB/s)
• Maximum sequential write speed up to 175MB/s (We tested it at up to 165.4MB/s)
• Indilinx Barefoot controller (90nm fab process, 256Kb cache) and Samsung MLC NAND flash for maximum performance
• 64MB DRAM cache for stutter-free performance (256Kb cache makes a large difference here)
• No moving parts for increased durability over standard hard disk drives
• Decreased power usage for cool and quiet operation and increased laptop battery life
• 100+ Year Life Expectancy (MTBF)
• Two year warranty

Corsair X64 Benchmarks

The first observation I would like to make in the this section is that the Corsair X64 64GB Indilinx MLC SSD Drive formatted extremely fast, it easily took less then 5 minutes to format the drive. Test Machine specs: Asus M3A78-T 790GX MB, Phenom X2 550 3.1ghz, g.SKILL 1066Mhz 5-5-5-15 DDR2.

Amazing at 216.3MB/s sustained average read across the entire hard drive the Corsair X64 64GB is the fastest hard drive I have ever used and 7% isn't a bad CPU usage under Vista SP2 x64 w/ logs of software installed and the speed of the data. Until you've used a drive with a 0.1ms access time you have no idea as how responsive your hard drive could be!

When transfering 128Kb blocks or larger the speed is very consistent which really shows off the Indilinx Barefoot controllers (w/ 256Kb cache) performance.

Conclusion:

I have now been running the Corsair X64 64GB SSD Drive for two weeks with Windows 7 x64 Final RTM, and the performance of this drive has just utterly destroyed my previous g.Skill 25S2S JMicron control based SSD Drive. Although the Indilinx controller isn't cutting manufacturered at a 90nm process it really gives the Corsair X64 some real balls. Testing this drive just blew me away in the benchmarks! With a random access latency of 0.1ms, a sustained read speed of 216.3MB/s, and a write speed of up to 165MB/s this drive is blistering fast. If your looking for a high quality SSD made by a major memory producer then I would only consider the Corsair Elite Series X64 64Gb. Also available is the Corsair X128 128GB and X256 256GB SSD drives, which are apparently even faster.