News Angelbird unveils PCIe SSD

http://www.bit-tech.net/news/hardware/2010/10/19/angelbird-unfolds-its-wings/1

 

Good product, what I wonder though is if you can open up just any (or any Sandforce) SSD PCB and slap it in the slots - it looks like they use the same standard SATA power and data connections, but my gut tells me it's proprietory.

The speeds are probably comparable to Raid, so given the extra cost it doesn't show value for money right now. One thing that could tip in its favour would be Trim support - any word on whether it has this?

 

Very nice option. Too bad its still out of the price range of most for a general drive.

 

angelbird >> i thought only the Taiwanese used rubbish names?

 

I have to say, Angelbird Wings does sound more like a female sanitary product than a super-fast storage solution.

 

Bird's Angel Delight anyone?

 

LOL!

 

I don't know what the product is worth but it's nice to see a company talking about compatibility with other OS than windows (especially Linux). BTW how can they talk about mac OS installation while I thought MAc was only meant to be installed on apple computer?

 

Doing that could yield a roving Angry Bird.

 

Yes. If you can get rid of HDD cages in cases then there'll be better airflow and cooling. Plus you don't need to worry about saturating SATA 6gbps before the next standard comes out. PCIe slots have way more bandwith (x16 PCIe 2 anyone?)

 

Erm, because this drive can be installed on a Mac (specifically a Mac Pro).

 

That's some blisteringly fast quoted speeds... Whether or not it lives up to those claims seems yet to be proved, but if it does, then I think the £885 pricetag is definitely justified. PCIe is definitely the way forward in my opinion; who needs a southbridge!? One concern though could be a possible lack of Trim on RAID setups or am I mistaken on that?

 

I've got one word for ya : "trim"??!!

 

Little teaser of first sample to be reviewed :

http://it-service.be/forum/index.php?topic=609.msg8367;topicseen#msg8367

 

I'm not interested in SSD at all (whatever slot they wanna put it in) until the prices come down massively. I can live with my current boot times/load times quite easily and save myself hundreds of pounds in the process.

1TB for £40

240MB for £350 (ssd)

Hmm...let me think.

No speed boost is worth that price. None.

But I am happy for everyone to buy them and increase demand. Will make them cheaper for me in the end. Keep going suckers!

 

Re "trim?" - they're using SF SSD's that have built-in trim/GC.
So whatever your OS, you're covered.
Like to see it 4 up with SF2000
If your choice of SSD doesn't have that built in, running an app like Diglloyd Tools "Recondition SSD" (for OS X) would likely restore your write speeds.
Apparently attached disks can also be individually partitioned...
Thus possibility exists to very afford-ably attain decent R/W speeds with 4x HDD's attached (preferably hybrid), each with short stroked partitons for RAID0 and the rest RAID1.
This product will also be great in a Thunderbolt PCIe box, once they're affordable...
Waiting for more reviews to choose between the models on offer.

 

Not so. The way a RAID controller works is to break the direct connection between the OS and the disk - the OS addresses blocks on a 'virtual' drive created by the RAID controller (hardware or software), and the controller maps those requests to physical blocks on the relevant disk. TRIM does not work with other RAID controllers which connect to off-the-shelf SATA SSDs, so there is no natural assumption that it will work with Angelbird's setup. I don't know for sure that TRIM doesn't work with Angelbird, but the mere fact that the underlying drive hardware supports TRIM doesn't mean that TRIM will work properly with the Angelbird device as a unit.