Corsair Announces New 256GB High-Performance Solid-State Drive

btarunr · May 11, 2009, 07:12 PM

Corsair, a worldwide leader in high-performance computer and flash memory products, today announced the launch of the Corsair Storage Solutions P256 high-performance 256GB solid-state drive (SSD).

The Corsair Storage Solutions P256 has been designed using cutting-edge technology to deliver the highest performance and compatibility, in a capacity that is big enough to replace conventional storage solutions in a high-performance PC. The P256 uses specially selected Samsung MLC flash memory and a sophisticated Samsung Controller IC, coupled with 128MB of super-fast cache memory and Native Command Queuing (NCQ) support for blistering, stutter-free performance, delivering read speeds of up to 220MB/sec and write speeds of up to 200MB/sec.

“The Corsair Storage Solutions P256 delivers the best computing experience of any single storage drive available today,” said John Beekley, VP of Applications Engineering at Corsair, “Using the P256 results in immediate and dramatic improvements in system startup and shutdown, game level loading, application startup, and many other everyday tasks. Additionally, the P256 is more durable and reliable than hard disk drives, and has been shown in the Corsair Labs to provide up to 25% longer battery life in portable computers.”

The large, 256GB capacity provides ample space for the most advanced operating systems, multiple applications, and large music, photo and video collections. The Corsair Storage Solutions P256 is one of the most compatible solid-state drives available today due to the extensive validation of the Samsung controller and flash memory technology in multiple OEM systems.

The Corsair Storage Solutions P256 SSD is available immediately from Corsair’s authorized distributors and resellers worldwide, and is backed by a Two Year Limited Warranty. Complete customer support via telephone, email, forum and Tech Support Express is also available. For more information on Corsair SSD drives, please visit Corsair.

For more information about the Corsair P256 SSD, please visit this page.

INSTG8R · May 11, 2009, 07:47 PM

Hmm that looks very sexy! I may take the plunge and make my main drive SSD very very soon!

MKmods · May 11, 2009, 07:54 PM

wow! I was thinking il take 2 of them ... Than I saw they were $669 each

Suddenly VelociRaptors look like a good deal to me...

infrared · May 11, 2009, 08:06 PM

wtf, NCQ on a SSD?! how's that meant to work!

AsphyxiA · May 11, 2009, 08:22 PM

Quote:

Originally Posted by infrared

wtf, NCQ on a SSD?! how's that meant to work!

i really don't see the point either.

nemesis.ie · May 11, 2009, 10:07 PM

Perhaps the idea of the NCQ is to re-order writes so they are done more efficiently (e.g. in batches) and/or (per some new spec from MS or whatever) to also re-order operations to give priority to reads?

KieranD · May 11, 2009, 10:17 PM

queueing up commands to flash memory???

okay price wise its not for everyone but the tech is getting better, im happy with being able to buy cheap storage from hard disks and they arnt that bad

i envisage like people having hard drives for a long time just because they are cheap backups and can store a lot

probly have like a hard drive and a ssd

well i cant wait till usb becomes cheaper a 64gb is like £100

AllHopeIsGone1 · May 11, 2009, 10:20 PM

Quality brand!

Shadin · May 11, 2009, 10:38 PM

Quote:

Originally Posted by infrared

wtf, NCQ on a SSD?! how's that meant to work!

It's been proven that familiar terminology on new technology results in at least a 20% increase in performance just from marketing alone.

lemonadesoda · May 11, 2009, 10:40 PM

Quote:

NCQ was originally designed to compensate for the rotational latency inherent to mechanical hard drives, but here it's being used in reverse, because Intel says its SSDs are so fast that they actually encounter latency in the host system. It takes a little time (time is of course relative when you're talking about an SSD whose access latency is measured in microseconds) between when a system completes a request and the next one is issued. NCQ is used to queue up to 32 requests to keep the X25-E busy during any downtime between requests.

clipped from http://techreport.com/articles.x/15931/1

m4gicfour · May 11, 2009, 11:08 PM

Quote:

Originally Posted by Shadin

It's been proven that familiar terminology on new technology results in at least a 20% increase in performance just from marketing alone.

ROFL I like it.

Although from the link lemonadesoda posted it seems it may actually serve a purpose, cool.

icon1 · May 12, 2009, 03:41 AM

seems like a good SSD pretty expensive though..

1c3d0g · May 12, 2009, 03:49 AM

Yeah, don't worry though, in six months it'll be half the price. This market moves lightning quick, unlike hard disks. SSD's rock!

icon1 · May 12, 2009, 05:34 AM

^^
yeah, would love to get one or two of these when prices settle down.. (to experience some SSD goodness Lol), I'm just curious about the real performance of these SSDs compared to my SATA drives

chcytu · May 13, 2009, 02:07 PM

I plan to buy one soon

AsphyxiA · May 15, 2009, 06:32 AM

I'd love to see the performance of drives like these when sata3 becomes the standard

May 11, 2009, 07:12 PM	#1
btarunr Editor & Senior Moderator Join Date: Oct 2007 Location: Hyderabad, India Posts: 14,983 (7.30/day) Thanks: 788 Thanked 12,904 Times in 5,653 Posts System Specs	Corsair Announces New 256GB High-Performance Solid-State Drive Corsair, a worldwide leader in high-performance computer and flash memory products, today announced the launch of the Corsair Storage Solutions P256 high-performance 256GB solid-state drive (SSD). The Corsair Storage Solutions P256 has been designed using cutting-edge technology to deliver the highest performance and compatibility, in a capacity that is big enough to replace conventional storage solutions in a high-performance PC. The P256 uses specially selected Samsung MLC flash memory and a sophisticated Samsung Controller IC, coupled with 128MB of super-fast cache memory and Native Command Queuing (NCQ) support for blistering, stutter-free performance, delivering read speeds of up to 220MB/sec and write speeds of up to 200MB/sec. “The Corsair Storage Solutions P256 delivers the best computing experience of any single storage drive available today,” said John Beekley, VP of Applications Engineering at Corsair, “Using the P256 results in immediate and dramatic improvements in system startup and shutdown, game level loading, application startup, and many other everyday tasks. Additionally, the P256 is more durable and reliable than hard disk drives, and has been shown in the Corsair Labs to provide up to 25% longer battery life in portable computers.” The large, 256GB capacity provides ample space for the most advanced operating systems, multiple applications, and large music, photo and video collections. The Corsair Storage Solutions P256 is one of the most compatible solid-state drives available today due to the extensive validation of the Samsung controller and flash memory technology in multiple OEM systems. The Corsair Storage Solutions P256 SSD is available immediately from Corsair’s authorized distributors and resellers worldwide, and is backed by a Two Year Limited Warranty. Complete customer support via telephone, email, forum and Tech Support Express is also available. For more information on Corsair SSD drives, please visit Corsair. For more information about the Corsair P256 SSD, please visit this page.

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May 11, 2009, 07:47 PM	#2
INSTG8R Join Date: Nov 2004 Location: Lost in Norway Posts: 2,581 (0.83/day) Thanks: 934 Thanked 378 Times in 320 Posts System Specs	Hmm that looks very sexy! I may take the plunge and make my main drive SSD very very soon! __________________ Sys. Specs. i7 2600K@4.6\|ASUS P67 Sabertooth\|2x4096 Corsair Vengence 1600 \|Sapphire HD7970 OC\|WD Caviar Black 6.0Gbps 1TB x2@RAID 0\|SB X-Fi Fatality Pro\|TT Toughpower 1.2kW\|TT Kandalf L.C.S.\|Acer V243H 24" 1920x1080\|Logitech G25\|Logitech G500\|Logitech G19\|Saitek X-52 Pro\|TrackIR4 w/Trackclip Pro

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May 11, 2009, 07:54 PM	#3
MKmods Case Mod Guru Join Date: Feb 2008 Location: Nevada Posts: 4,711 (2.46/day) Thanks: 2,879 Thanked 1,766 Times in 1,364 Posts System Specs	wow! I was thinking il take 2 of them ... Than I saw they were $669 each Suddenly VelociRaptors look like a good deal to me... __________________ Buy tin snips FIRST!

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May 11, 2009, 08:06 PM	#4
infrared Join Date: May 2005 Location: Southampton, UK Posts: 2,878 (0.99/day) Thanks: 233 Thanked 185 Times in 156 Posts System Specs	wtf, NCQ on a SSD?! how's that meant to work! __________________ I don't suffer from insanity - I enjoy every minute of it!

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May 11, 2009, 10:07 PM	#6
nemesis.ie Join Date: Jan 2006 Location: Ireland Posts: 115 (0.04/day) Thanks: 7 Thanked 7 Times in 6 Posts	Perhaps the idea of the NCQ is to re-order writes so they are done more efficiently (e.g. in batches) and/or (per some new spec from MS or whatever) to also re-order operations to give priority to reads?

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May 11, 2009, 10:17 PM	#7
KieranD Eligible for custom title Join Date: Aug 2007 Location: Glasgow, Scotland Posts: 5,460 (2.59/day) Thanks: 1,640 Thanked 821 Times in 712 Posts System Specs	queueing up commands to flash memory??? okay price wise its not for everyone but the tech is getting better, im happy with being able to buy cheap storage from hard disks and they arnt that bad i envisage like people having hard drives for a long time just because they are cheap backups and can store a lot probly have like a hard drive and a ssd well i cant wait till usb becomes cheaper a 64gb is like £100 __________________ http://myinstants.com/instant/transformer/

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May 11, 2009, 10:20 PM	#8
AllHopeIsGone1 Banned Join Date: Apr 2009 Posts: 121 (0.08/day) Thanks: 3 Thanked 3 Times in 3 Posts System Specs	Quality brand!

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May 12, 2009, 03:41 AM	#12
icon1 Join Date: Aug 2008 Location: Northside Q.C. Posts: 105 (0.06/day) Thanks: 6 Thanked 17 Times in 17 Posts System Specs	seems like a good SSD pretty expensive though..

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May 12, 2009, 03:49 AM	#13
1c3d0g Join Date: Dec 2007 Posts: 615 (0.31/day) Thanks: 2,255 Thanked 47 Times in 38 Posts	Yeah, don't worry though, in six months it'll be half the price. This market moves lightning quick, unlike hard disks. SSD's rock!

May 12, 2009, 05:34 AM	#14
icon1 Join Date: Aug 2008 Location: Northside Q.C. Posts: 105 (0.06/day) Thanks: 6 Thanked 17 Times in 17 Posts System Specs	^^ yeah, would love to get one or two of these when prices settle down.. (to experience some SSD goodness Lol), I'm just curious about the real performance of these SSDs compared to my SATA drives

May 13, 2009, 02:07 PM	#15
chcytu Join Date: May 2009 Posts: 5 (0.00/day) Thanks: 4 Thanked 0 Times in 0 Posts System Specs	I plan to buy one soon

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May 15, 2009, 06:32 AM	#16
AsphyxiA Join Date: Oct 2005 Location: Omaha, NE Posts: 559 (0.20/day) Thanks: 57 Thanked 15 Times in 14 Posts	I'd love to see the performance of drives like these when sata3 becomes the standard __________________ Lenovo U410 Core i3 8 GB of RAM 64GB SSD + 1TB HDD nVidia 610m OC -1.2Ghz when plugged in. killer n-1202 wifi

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