14 DAY TRIAL // It is a well-known trend on the IT industry that when a company releases an update to a product line, rivals will quickly match the move with a similar maneuver of their own. In this instance, OCZ is being mirrored by Silicon Power.
That is to say, much like OCZ launched the fifth-generation Vertex SSDs series the other day, Silicon Power has unveiled the Velox V50.
Then again, that isn't entirely accurate. OCZ didn't actually launch the products as much as allowed a preview to reach the web, while Silicon power definitely made the formal introduction, with a press release and everything.
The Velox V50 series of 2.5-inch SATA III solid-state drives (SATA 6.0 Gbps) is available in 32 GB, 64 GB, 128 GB and 256 GB.
They feature “the latest controller technology to provide a brand new computer experience in excellent performance and cost effectiveness for those who are about to retire their traditional hard drives.”
Curiously though, despite that claim, the performance is a bit odd. While the read rate is quite good (530 MB/s), the writing speed is quite low in comparison (200 MB/s).
On the flip side, we might have been spoiled by the SandForce-powered drives with 500+ MB/s performance read/write, so we are a bit biased.
Unhelpfully, Silicon Power neglects to mention just what controller is used by the Velox V50.
At least it provides the other relevant info, like ECC technology, built-in SMART monitoring system, NCQ and RAID compatibility, TRIM, Garbage Collection, and a shockproof and anti-vibration Iron Grey aluminum case (1500G max shock, 20G max vibration resistance).
Sadly, we do not have pricing information either, but since sales are bound to start soon (no ETA was given, so we assume they are already available or will start selling shortly), this last bit of info should surface on its own.