Corsair X256 SSD offers lower-cost speed
updated 09:25 am EDT, Tue August 25, 2009
Corsair X256 SSD
Corsair today put out a new capacity leader in its Extreme Series SSDs as a bid to claim the best of both worlds. The X256 reaches 256GB of storage but will theoretically cost less than the earlier P256 through slight sacrifices in speed: it reads faster at 240MB per second but gives up a slight amount of write speed, dropping down to 170MB per second, and halves the cache to 64MB. An Indilinx Barefoot memory controller and Samsung flash memory prevent the drive from bogging down.
The 2.5-inch SATA II drive is firmware upgradable and should support Windows 7's TRIM command, which frees up unused memory cells and keeps SSDs running at or near top speed even with a mostly full drive. At present, the X256 when new costs about as much as the slightly older drive with a $695 price point. It should be available today through online retailers.
