14 DAY TRIAL // SandForce controllers already achieve sequential read and write speeds of over 500 MB/s, but real world performance doesn't usually reach that high.
The new controller from NovaChips might have a better time of living up to its hype if we're reading things right.
The NovaChips Bugatti NVS3600A controller has a 10-channel architecture instead of 4-channel or 8-channel.
This lets SATA III SSDs maintain a sequential transfer speed of over 500 MB/s both when reading and when writing.
The specifications page even suggests that the writing speed is higher than the read speed. Somehow. We aren't sure if it the company got the numbers mixed up or if the transfers really are of 520 vs. 500 MB/s.
Anyway, there will be 80 GB, 160 GB and 300 GB models up for sale, eventually. The announcement didn't give an arrival date. Nor the prices.
“The Biwin NuvoDrive NX offers superior write speed compared to existing SATA III SSDs. Its advantage increases in small block random writes,” says Joe James, vice president of worldwide marketing, Biwin America.
“And it beats competing SSDs hands down in 4K random write operations for incompressible data. Technology innovations like the 10-channel controller architecture and beefy DRAM cache make this performance possible. ”
In addition to good performance and capacity, the MLC NAND-based NuvoDrive NX possesses AES-256 & 128 data encryption, Built-in BCH ECC, wear leveling and a MTBF of 2,000,000 hours. The random 4K max performance is 80,000 IOPS.
Needless to say, SMART (self-monitoring and reporting technology) is supported as well, as are Native Command Queuing (up to 32 commands), Built-in Garbage Collection and TRIM.
Finally, the drives are CE, FCC and RoHS-certified, are compatible with multiple operating systems (Windows 7, Vista, XP 32-bit/64-bit, Mac OSX) and consume 5.2W at most (1.1W in idle mode). The operating voltage is 5V +/-5%.